


Into The City

by marit



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Anxiety, Bucky's not his childhood friend though, He's just Steve's neighbor who doesn't know Steve is Captain America, M/M, Or the Winter Soldier, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Set during CA: TWS, Steve's still Captain America
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3634929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marit/pseuds/marit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America moves in next door to Bucky Barnes at 10pm on a Sunday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Lock Picking and Balconies

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Over The Love by Florence + The Machine because I couldn't think of a title, panicked a bit, and that's what I was listening to at the time. ( _'Cause it’s a feeling that you get when the afternoon is set on a bridge into the city._ ) I promise not to channel The Great Gatsby as a result. 
> 
> This is a work in progress. Sorry. Please hang in there with me. I know approximately where it's going but haven't gotten there yet myself. I work a job with odd hours so cannot promise a consistent posting schedule.
> 
> Any mistakes are my own. Blame me, but please do so nicely.

Someone moves into the next door apartment at 10pm on a Sunday.

Bucky can’t help but overhear, his senses turned automatically out to the hall in a watchfulness he hasn’t been able to turn off despite all of his efforts to do so. Whoever rented the apartment before had been there less than he (and it was a he; Bucky had caught glimpses of him a few times, enough to decide on “businessman” and “arrogant”) had been away, until three months ago when he had stopped showing up all together. Whether dead or moved, he clearly hadn’t renewed his lease. And so, the opportunity for a new neighbor arose, one who apparently was the type to move in late at night.

He can hear two low, male voices arguing with little heat in front of the door (“Pull it towards you.” “You’ll have to get a new lock, man. This one is awful.” “Here, take this.”) and then the quieter sound of either a woman or a small man walking up just in time for the door to open and shut with a soft click, their voices silenced by the more soundproof walls between the apartments.

At 10:13 the two men leave and then come back again five minutes later. At 11:20, one man and the (likely) woman leave, which means Bucky’s new neighbor is probably one male who apparently has very few possessions important enough to move in when he himself does. Either that or he moved everything in during the nine hours Bucky left the house on Friday for work, but he can’t help but notice that the hall shows absolutely no signs of anything heavy being moved in. There are no scuff marks, nothing on the floor that isn’t there normally, no dull thumps that would denote furniture being moved around, no sounds from the multiple trips to the garbage that moving necessitates. There are absolutely no signs of anyone moving in except for those voices at 10pm on a Sunday night.

Over the next week, the most he hears from his new neighbor is him exiting the apartment one time around 6am on Thursday. Bucky isn’t sure if he is never there (or always there and never leaves), only makes noise while Bucky is out, or if he’s just eerily silent all together. Either way, it seems Bucky has once again lucked out on the neighbor-front because he’s gone from one quiet-and-often-gone neighbor to another.

The new neighbor has an air of mystery that annoys Bucky, though. It annoys him that he’s never seen him, that he never hears him, that apparently there are no visitors after that first time, and that he apparently has no furniture or anything else worth moving in except whatever it was he and his friends could carry in two short trips. Bucky imagines his mysterious neighbor sitting in the middle of his furnitureless apartment, five cardboard boxes and maybe a backpack surrounding him for days on end until he leaves early on a Thursday morning.

It shouldn’t annoy him but it does. It’s an unknown. It’s also strangely pathetic, even though logically Bucky knows he can’t be entirely correct in his assessment. For one thing, even mysterious, silent neighbors need to eat, so either one of his cardboard boxes has to be substituted for groceries brought up that Sunday night or the neighbor has left at some point to get food. Certainly no one’s delivered it. Also, no one really sits in an almost entirely empty apartment doing nothing for days on end. Not even Bucky at his worst does that.

Still, it’s strange. It’s strange and annoying and a bit concerning because even though Bucky might be detached from civilization more often than not, he still doesn’t want to see someone else be like that.

And then, well, one week and two days after hearing him in the hall for the first time, Bucky actually sees his neighbor from the back and it turns out that he’s very good looking. Well, his back is as it walks away from Bucky and toward the stairs, and the bit of the side of his face (ear area, really) Bucky sees as the neighbor pushes open the stairwell door is as well. It’s stupid, because Bucky shouldn’t care more about someone who is around his age and good looking than someone old or ugly or whatever else, but he has never claimed to be a great, selfless person, and so apparently he does care more.

His mysterious, eerily silent, owns-no-furniture neighbor turns out to be his mysterious, eerily silent, owns-no-furniture-but-is-in-amazingly-good-shape neighbor. Because of course. Now his mild (well, more than mild) curiosity slash annoyance slash concern will turn into some sort of semi-creepy obsession with glimpsing the face of his neighbor, while also possibly determining whether he actually eats a proper amount and owns a mattress. (“For him to sleep on!” his inner voice defends his own thoughts without anyone else to argue against. “To sleep on, not for… other things.”)

One morning a couple of weeks later (weeks where he didn’t see the neighbor again, but he’s around 60% sure that Handsome-But-No-Furniture was gone for at least half of that time), he leaves his apartment and nearly runs straight into a woman with straight red hair who is leaning casually on the wall directly beside his door.

“Hello, neighbor,” she says, not moving from her relaxed position against the wall.

“Er, hi,” Bucky answers eloquently. He’s stuck in his doorway, unsure whether to retreat and shut the door between them again or to nudge her out of the way so he can lock it, and it’s because of this confusion that it takes a moment for her words to register.

He only has two apartments directly near him, so when she says “neighbor” he has no idea what she’s talking about. The laundry room and stairwell take up the wall directly opposite his apartment, Silent-But-Possibly-Starving is in the corner apartment, and on the other side of Bucky’s is a middle-aged couple with three cats and a small dog, even though they are only supposed to have one cat and no dog. He worries that maybe he has yet another neighbor who moved in silently and furnitureless, maybe, or perhaps she is also in the corner apartment and even more silent than the other person there.

She watches him without saying anything. He waits a beat longer until it’s apparent she’s not going to supply any information, then asks uncertainly, “Can I help you with something?” He moves forward, shutting the door behind him. There’s something disconcerting about the way her eyes follow him. It’s a bit seductive but also too smart, and he’s immediately suspicious. He is suspicious of anyone who isn’t automatically rude to him, really. And strangers who are waiting for him outside his apartment for no reason.

“I need your balcony,” she says. The heel of her boot hits against the wall as she pushes herself away from it.

“Why?” he asks, instead of what he meant to say, which was “No way.”

“I need to test out something,” she answers unhelpfully. “I could’ve just broken in but I was told this would be politer.”

“Uh,” he says, again being his eloquent self. Because really, what do you say to a beautiful woman exuding intelligence who randomly wants into your apartment to use your balcony for a reason she doesn’t seem willing to give?

“You have a moment, right? Great,” she says without waiting for an answer. She pushes past him to the door only to be pulled up short by the locked door knob. “Keys?” She holds out her hand, palm up, and Bucky finds himself digging in his pocket for them before he even registers that he really doesn’t have to let her into his apartment. Also, he doesn’t want to. Also, he still doesn’t know why she wants in there.

It proves moot anyway because he doesn’t have his keys. He knows exactly where they are, though: the hook on the wall perpendicular to his door, left forgotten there when he shuffled out of his apartment thrown off his routine by the stranger lurking in the hall. He engaged one of the locks out of habit, locked from the inside on the way out the door.

“I don’t have them,” he says honestly. It’s a good excuse, at least, to refuse her access.

She doesn’t look put off, though; she just sighs. She turns and walks away without a word, and Bucky’s relieved that she will just leave and this incident can just be filed under “Extremely Weird But Could Have Been Worse.”

However, instead of going to the stairs like he had expected, she opens the door to Beautifully-Muscled-But-Maybe-Doesn’t-Own-A-Couch’s apartment halfway and calls in, “Can I have the lock picks?”

Bucky didn’t even think his neighbor was home, but sure enough, he hears from the depths of the other apartment, “I thought we decided you wouldn’t break in.”

“He locked himself out,” she answers, shooting Bucky an exasperated look like it’s his fault he got caught off-guard by someone asking him to use his balcony.

“Did you ask him if you can break into his apartment?” The answer comes from closer now, but Bucky still can’t see Wonderful-Person-To-Have-Living-Next-Door-But-Possibly-Lonely. He’s torn between running away to get help and inching forward to see if he can finally catch a glimpse his mysterious neighbor.

The woman glances his way and apparently takes his lack of running away as consent because she says, “He said it’s fine.”

Bucky opens his mouth to protest (finally) but without even looking at him, she interrupts him before he gets the chance.

“It’ll be faster than you waiting for someone else to come unlock your door,” she explains, not incorrectly. “We both get what we want: you get back in your apartment, and I get access to your balcony.”

Faceless-Neighbor-Who-Has-At-Least-One-Terrifying-Friend returns from wherever he briefly disappeared to to get the lock picks. He doesn’t step into the hall but Bucky gets a view of his hand as he drops them into hers. It's a nice hand.

She walks back to Bucky, and Neighbor-Who-Also-Has-Nice-Hands’ door shuts without another word. Bucky, for some reason, doesn’t make another move to protest. He thinks he might be in a state of such stunned confusion that he has lost his ability to argue or stand up for himself and his apartment’s privacy.

She crouches down in front of his door, saying, “It would’ve been faster to just break the door handle but you probably wouldn’t like that as much.”

“You’re not wrong,” he answers, his voice finally returning in time to supply a dry but ultimately useless comment.

She glances at him with the hint of a wry smile, and within a moment Bucky can hear the dim thunk of the doorknob popping unlocked. She stands up smoothly and simultaneously shoves the picks in her jacket pocket and opens the door, stepping in without further comment. It’s still disconcerting, but Bucky seems to have reached a weird state of just following the person breaking into his apartment. He’s just thankful he didn’t leave anything a mess.

She plucks his keys off their hook and passes them to him. “You can go. I’ll be fine, and you’re going to be late for work.”

“I’m all right,” he says, because apparently going along with what she’s done so far is fine but leaving her alone is not. Which, well, it isn’t. He has things in his apartment, things he hopes she doesn’t try to steal. He’s not sure he wouldn’t just let her walk out with it right now.

She shrugs like it’s no difference to her, which it probably isn’t, and puts his keys back. She confidently walks towards his balcony, barely glancing at anything in the room. He has the sense she takes it all in anyway. It's in the way her eyes track over the space, the way she immediately writes it all off as not a concern.

He follows her as she throws open the sliding door with more force than is entirely necessary and walks out onto the small space. He has a single chair sitting beside a table holding two nearly dead plants. She glances at them, says, “You should really water those.” Then, in what is apparently becoming habit, she doesn’t wait for an answer before calling out, “Ready?”

“Yeah?” Seriously-How-Has-Bucky-Still-Not-Seen-His-Neighbor’s-Face answers, apparently standing directly inside the open door to his own balcony.

“Come outside. We’re going to try this,” she says.

“I thought I was going to stay in here,” comes the answer. Bucky’s brow wrinkles in confusion. Is his new neighbor shy? Agoraphobic? Famous? Part of a crime gone wrong, so now no one can see his face for his own safety? It would certainly explain a lot.

The woman (Bucky really needs to learn their names if this goes on much longer and breaking into his apartment to use his balcony becomes habit) looks at Bucky, her gaze searching. He must measure up, because there’s only a moment of silence before she calls back, “He’s good. You can come out.”

Bucky only has one very brief moment to feel a spike of pathetic excitement before he is caught completely off-guard when the woman suddenly jumps, grabs onto something on the balcony above, swings between Bucky’s and Certainly-Definitely-Gorgeous-Neighbor’s balconies, and narrowly misses kicking the other man in the chest on landing.

Bucky probably looks like an idiot, gaping over at them. It certainly undercuts what otherwise might have been a climactic reveal of his neighbor’s face, though--a face that is distantly familiar but not someone he can place, and pretty much as good looking as expected. It just adds to the annoyance that Handsome-But-Mysterious has been such a mystery up until that point.

Said neighbor, on the other hand, only looks mildly amused, as opposed to surprised, worried, scared, or any other reaction a woman narrowly landing on you after jumping from one balcony to another usually necessitates. “I wasn’t ready,” he says, instead of something normal, such as, “That was terrifying. Do not do that again.”

He gets a shrug in response before she’s balancing on the railing and jumping across again so quickly that Bucky doesn’t even have a chance to feel terrified on her behalf before she’s back beside him straightening her jacket. “You weren’t supposed to be ready,” she answers, and Bucky’s starting to wonder if she ever says anything that isn’t at least a little bewildering.

He is feeling a bit secondary, really, self-conscious and weirdly doubtful of his decision not to leave for work when he had the chance. Which is stupid. It’s his apartment. Of course he should be there, and not just let her take it over so she can leap around like something straight out of a spy movie. If he wanted to he could probably jump the balconies himself, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not normal. Unlike her, he has no urge to actually do it. They are seven floors up, for one thing. For another, he’s seriously out of practice.

And his neighbor, well. He’s certainly an improvement over the last one, whose use of the balcony when he was around extended to opening the door wide to allow the noise from his daily watch of two very loud episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to drift outside. Bucky doesn’t know what else to think of him, except that he doesn’t recognize him as a celebrity and so he is no closer to figuring out why he is never seen.

The balcony-defying woman must sense his confusion, because she suddenly straightens from where she had been inspecting a corner of his balcony to say, “This is Steve.” She gestures over her shoulder and gives him a pointed look, as if what she really meant was, “Don’t make an idiot of yourself, idiot.” Then she continues, “And I’m Natasha,” offhandedly, as if he might not care to know the name of the woman who has returned to her scrutiny of the corner like the balcony is her own.

Bucky looks from her to Steve and finds the other man looking grave and a bit self-conscious, like he wants to shrink back through the door. Any trace of humor he had when talking to Natasha has disappeared, and even though he hasn’t really done much, has more or less been entirely mentally absent during this whole interaction, Bucky feels horrible for apparently singlehandedly making that comfort disappear.

“Bucky,” he supplies, after an awkward pause and with a slightly embarrassing little wave.

“Your lease says James Barnes,” Natasha responds, and it’s a statement, not a question. She looks up and over at Steve, whose eyes have widened. He looks surprised, and Bucky isn’t sure why. He feels even more out of the loop now, which is a feat, and this part bothers him more, that apparently his name means something to Steve that Bucky doesn’t know about.

“It’s a nickname?” And he really didn’t mean for that to come out like a question, but he’s spent the last ten minutes or so in a major state of puzzlement. Weirdly, that’s all it is though. He doesn’t feel particularly threatened or anxious. He’s just confused. Regardless, it isn’t helped by the silent conversation Steve and Natasha seem to be having with only their eyes. It ends with a small, tight headshake from Natasha, who turns to carefully lift up the plant pots and peer intently at his table.

“Steve is staying here to have somewhere quiet to go. He has... fans." It's quite clear that by "fans" she means the exact opposite. “So, please don’t tell anyone.” There’s an undercurrent of threat to her otherwise polite and even request. 

“I won’t.” He glances briefly at Steve, who has barely relaxed at Bucky’s agreement. He’s watching Natasha intently, but seems to be more or less leaving everything up to her.

“I can put some dirt on the table, if you want to be able to tell if they’ve been moved,” he supplies after another moment. Steve is still hovering in the entryway to his own apartment while Natasha continues her oddly thorough inspection of what is otherwise a very boring, ugly patio table.

She looks at him, and Bucky feels a weird sense of pride at the very small amount of approval in her eyes. “Please do,” she answers, and sets the plant she’s been holding back down onto the table exactly where it was before. A leaf falls sadly off and into the pot, and she swiftly picks it up and drops it over the edge of the balcony.

“Your apartment is a security risk.” Bucky had already guessed that her reasons for being in his apartment were related to security for Steve's apartment based entirely off the way she has been peering intently at anything that might prove to be either a weapon or some way to easily get into the next apartment. He can't help but want to know _why_ , though, which he thinks is entirely warranted. Her statement is an olive branch of sorts, though, a hint of apology for barging in without any explanation. “Since Steve won’t let me just kick you out, we’ll do it this way. It should have been done earlier, but he said it might be too much too soon.”

She glares with little heat at Steve, who shrugs. “It would be,” he says, looking no less uncomfortable. Bucky wants to say something to ease the tension, but Natasha continues to give instructions before he can come up with anything.

“We’ll get you new locks and a security system,” she says to Bucky. “You’ve already got a gun and know how to use it, so that’s good. Don’t worry about anything else. We’ll sort it out.”

Bucky doesn’t ask how she knows not only that he keeps a gun in his apartment, but also that he’s very good at using it. She probably figured it out from the way his dishes are stacked in the drying rack or the way the lump in his couch cushion shows how he was sitting last night. He’s known her all of five, maybe ten minutes and already knows enough to understand that she’s entirely too observant for someone who hasn’t been trained to be, and that she’s probably just as much, if not more, competent with a gun than he is. He himself has been trained in noticing these things. She’s definitely someone he doesn’t particularly want on his bad side. The important part is that she knows he has a gun, and he knows, and now Steve knows, and apparently they all think he won't be using it against Steve and his mysterious security measures, and that’s all that matters right now.

They are all silent for a few minutes while Natasha finishes her inspection of Bucky’s balcony. She nods when she’s done, and pushes past him back into his apartment without further fanfare. Bucky turns to follow her but hesitates. Steve is still standing awkwardly, his hands shoved in the pockets of his tan pants. He has at least taken a step back onto the balcony and away from his earlier inching retreat into the apartment, but he’s still radiating worry. Bucky wants entirely too much to say something comforting even though he’s just met the man.

He still can’t think of what to say, though. Everything that occurs to him is dim and not at all like the image of competent former-soldier he wants to give off. All of the sentences that immediately come to mind seem more like his current self, the one who works part-time as one of three employees at a small library frequented by nuns, and who likely has PTSD and at the least certainly has anxiety issues he’s still trying to get over. In other words, awkward.

Natasha doesn’t leave like expected, though. She instead heads into the kitchen and disappears from view behind the small partition wall. There’s the sound of the sink before she returns with a glass of water in hand. Bucky steps out of the way when it’s clear she’s coming back onto the balcony with it. She carefully waters the plants before handing him the empty glass.

“Thanks, Barnes,” she says. “I’ll be in contact. Make sure you accept calls from Hungarian phone numbers.”

Bucky can’t tell whether that’s a joke or not, so he just nods. “Will do.”

She vaults from his balcony to Steve’s again, but this time Bucky suspects it’s more for the fun of it than any real test of how easy it would be. There’s the sound of something hitting the railing before tumbling down through the air between the balconies. She leans back over the ledge from the safety of Steve’s balcony and says, “Oops. There go your lock picks.”

She pushes herself straight and turns to head into the apartment but is stopped in her trajectory by Steve, who looks like he hasn’t even heard what she said and is resolutely standing in the doorway again. He steps back out when he notices her, giving her room to pass but she stays where she is instead, watching him.

“I can move out if you want,” Steve says abruptly to Bucky.

Bucky’s caught off guard, as he so often has been this morning, and as a result once again can’t think of a response fast enough. He doesn’t think he’s been giving off the impression that he’s put off by the whole situation, though. The impression that he’s a gaping idiot who can’t string five words together, maybe, but not an idiot who wants anyone to move.

“It’s a lot to ask for, I know. It wasn’t exactly in your lease agreement, strangers commandeering your balcony,” Steve continues with a forced smile. It’s not a smile Bucky particularly likes. It’s a smile that isn’t amused but more like he thought this was inevitable, that Bucky would want him to leave. Which is annoying, because Bucky hasn’t said that. In fact, he’s currently thinking the exact opposite. He rather likes the idea of living next to this version of his mysterious neighbor that he’s learning about, and not just because he’s insanely good-looking.

So Bucky shrugs, says, “Nah, you can stay. I think I like living beside you. You’re quiet, and it might be exciting,” and he’s rather glad when his voice sounds more confident and unconcerned than he actually feels.

Steve doesn’t look convinced, though, so Bucky adds, for the first time taking the initiative in the conversation, “Seriously, it’s fine. I don’t mind at all. Invade my balcony any time you need to.” He offers a smile, which Steve returns on a smaller scale, still not looking entirely comforted. Natasha looks pleased, though, or as much as Bucky suspects she is capable of ever looking pleased.

“Come on, Steve,” she says, patting him on the arm. “Waffles won’t wait forever.”

Bucky doesn’t move from where he stands on his balcony gripping an empty glass until Natasha calls back, “You’re going to be really late for work, Barnes.”

“Fuck,” he says. At least he remembers his keys this time.

*****

It takes until after he apologizes repeatedly to the librarian, after he gets through his long, boring work shift, after he locks up, after he pauses briefly in the hall, craning to hear any sound from the apartment next door, after he starts making food for supper, for it all sinks in.

Gorgeous-And-Furnitureless is in fact Steve who is in fact Gorgeous-And-Potentially-Dangerous-And-Furnitureless. He is, in fact, everything Bucky has been steadfastly trying to avoid for over a year, up to and including the “Furnitureless” part because that seems to have incited a weird protectiveness that has only been exacerbated by the fact that Steve apparently could actually be in danger. He seems perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but also like he might be way too nice to actually shoot someone effectively,if necessary, which might leave it up to Bucky to do, and, again: fuck.

Bucky nearly has a panic attack on his kitchen floor but manages to narrowly avoid it, which effectively cuts off that train of thought. He gets up and dumps his overcooked noodles in the garbage before boiling new water to start over again. Next door, Steve is as silent as always.


	2. On Honesty and Lasagna

The day after the balcony incident Bucky replaces his own locks with ones he knows will be harder to pick. He lies to the landlord and says he lost the key and is worried someone might find it; no, of course his address wasn’t attached to his keyring; yes, he knows how unlikely it is that the key will be traced back to his apartment out of all of the locked doors available to choose from; no, he’s still not comfortable keeping his same locks; yes, he will pay for the new ones.

He replaces the locks. He purposefully scatters dirt around his potted plants, which he actually remembers to water now that he’s paranoid enough to check every time he returns home to see if they’ve moved. They’re thriving, which is more to be said than most things in his life. Now he worries about over-watering them, as well as thieves, murderers, having to shoot someone, and whether that headache over his right eye is normal.

So he replaces the locks. He scatters some dirt. He cleans his apartment, because why not. He places a low table inconveniently right in front of his balcony door just in case Natasha decides to jump to it again because she deserves to trip over it if she does. (He ends up tripping over it more often than not himself, but, well, the price of security and all.) He puts a thin, light rug inside his door that he carefully flattens every time he leaves and makes sure hasn’t moved every time he returns. He puts another one below his bedroom window as well even though there’s already a dresser there that he has covered in easily knock-over-able items. Just in case.

While he does all of this and more, there’s annoyance lurking under everything. Annoyance, and unplaceable anxiety. He wasn’t lying when he told Steve he didn’t want him to move, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be annoyed with him. Is it so hard to just introduce himself and to explain that he might need help, that he just needs to make sure Bucky’s balcony isn’t some sort of security risk? And oh, by-the-by, my terrifying red-haired friend is going to help you get back into your apartment by picking the locks but I promise she will stop at the doorway because we are all reasonable, not-possible-highly-trained-assassins-seriously-what-do-those-two-do-for-a-living people?

He rants to Sister Catherine on Monday because she’s around and his therapist isn’t, but he is forced to be vague and it comes off more like he had an ex-girlfriend barge into his apartment to water his plants. But she nods along and hums agreement in all of the right places, listening intently while he grips a drawer handle with too much force. It’s his non-fake hand, at least, so it doesn’t do any damage.

(“They are both real, Bucky,” says the inner voice that sounds suspiciously like his favourite short-tempered Australian doctor-slash-researcher. “One is just made of different material.”

“I said non-fake,” his petulant teenage-channelling inner voice responds, as caring about semantics as ever.)

“You still must take care of yourself. That’s your space to do with what you like,” she says at the end. “If you do not want someone there, do not have them there. This girl will have to respect that.”

And then, asked like she is doing him a favour and politely calling him back to the task at hand: “Would you like to help with me find the books we have on Portugal, dear, so I can talk to my niece about her trip without sounding like an old nun?”

He finds and retrieves the three relevant books they have and then prints off some tourist information from the Internet because “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Bucky, and I don’t need a headache on top of that,” and then she leaves with promises to ruminate on what he’s said even though Bucky protests that it’s not necessary. The elderly, Bucky thinks, really can be exceedingly kind.

*****

Four days after the balcony incident, Bucky finds an envelope taped to his door.

He pulls out the paper inside, which is, oddly, a sticky note (why put a sticky note in an envelope?) with untidy but perfectly legible printing on it. _Barnes_ , the writing says, _Come see me when you’re in. -- N._

Bucky drops his stuff off inside his doorway before he does, and then spends nearly three full minutes simply breathing deeply outside the door to Steve’s apartment. It’s not that he’s nervous but… well, he’s nervous. He shouldn’t be. He wants to be annoyed and righteous and demand answers, but all he can do is count and breathe as evenly as possible. He hasn’t seen Natasha at all, and he’s only seen Steve once more three days ago when Steve was leaving just as Bucky was entering. He did an odd backwards half-jog, said, “Sorry, I’ve got to run. I’ll talk to you later, though,” like it was a certain thing, a plan to mark down in their respective day planners.

He finally knocks.

“Just a minute!” he hears Natasha yell from somewhere inside. She slips out the door a moment later, barely opening it wide enough for him to see a blank white wall and a shoe rack before the door is shut again and Natasha is standing awkwardly close, a covered baking dish touching the very edges of Bucky’s jacket.

“Hey, Barnes,” she says. “Do you want to go back to yours and eat this lasagna with me?”

“What? No,” Bucky responds, and at least this time his confusion isn’t resulting in voicelessness and doormat-ness.

“Look, I just want to talk. We can go elsewhere and not to your apartment. Do you want the lasagna, though?” she asks, not looking very put out. Not that he can read her very well, he’s discovering. It’s a bit disconcerting.

“No. Why would I want a lasagna?” It comes out sharp, but really, is this why she wanted to talk to him? To hand him food like he’s some sort of sick or mourning neighbor to be taken care of? Is any interaction with this woman remotely normal?

“I thought everyone liked it. Are you vegetarian?”

“I’m not a vegetarian,” he answers, backing to his apartment a few steps. He might just leave. This is ridiculous.

“It’s a gesture,” she says after a brief pause, like the tiny bit of vague honesty takes effort. “Because I want to talk to you about why I know who you are, and you’re not going to like it, so here’s a preemptive conciliatory gesture.”

Bucky turns back to her, disbelieving, his hand on the doorknob, “Your gesture is lasagna? And you want me to believe what you’re saying? Or are you going to threaten me again?”

She opens her mouth as if to protest, and then shuts it, takes a breath, and then offers, “Look, you’re smart. You’ll figure out who I am eventually, so I’m going to tell you some truths right now so this doesn’t all come back later and make things awkward. I don’t want to deal with that when it happens. So why don’t you take this food I made, we go somewhere to talk, and then we move on?”

Bucky doubts that they will just be moving on from anything,or that she will just leave him alone afterward, but he has to admit that he’s intensely curious. And also maybe a bit worried. (Again. Add it to the list.) There are very few places someone who is as clearly highly trained as she is could know him from, and none of them are very good.

“Is Steve home?” he asks in one last ditch effort. “Doesn’t he want your food?”

“He’s away. He often is.” She hasn’t stopped watching him evenly, her gaze once again too observant and more than likely taking in the brief spike of disappointment he has to push down. Why should he be disappointed? He’s annoyed with Steve too, and he barely knows the man. She adds after a very brief pause, “Sometimes I stay here while he’s gone. I hope that’s not a problem.”

He shakes his head in response to her unspoken question (because it was a question and not another veiled threat, he thinks but isn't entirely certain about) before he can think to do otherwise, and then it occurs to him: “Does he have furniture?”

She gives him an odd look, which is fair enough. It is a strange question.

“Of course he does,” she answers simply.

“But no one moved any in,” he says, casting back to see if he did somehow miss the movers at some point. He supposes it’s possible.

“He bought the previous owner’s.”

“Oh, right.” And now Bucky feels like an idiot again, because why hadn’t that occurred to him? In a short period of time, his neighbor’s existence has become a lot less sad. He does own furniture, and he’s strangely silent because he’s not usually around. That’s a distinct improvement on “sits silently all day in his barren apartment,” even if he did recently have to include “waiting to be attacked by unknown people” onto that descriptor. That part is still hanging around, which, maybe, is sad enough on its own.

“So?” Natasha prompts after an awkward pause.

“Yeah, all right,” Bucky finally offers. He’s not sure why except that he’s curious and feels stupid and like he has to somehow prove he’s not stupid. And unlike what he wants to do, which is retreat to hide under his own blankets and feel sorry for himself, he is forcing himself to do something that will potentially answer a lot of questions. And apparently comes with free (hopefully not poisoned) food.

Natasha takes the few steps to his door and then stops. “You’re going to have to actually give me explicit permission to enter,” she says, oddly formal.

“What, are you a vampire?” He looks back at where she is perfectly framed by the doorway, clutching her lasagna and looking way too small to be so scary and bewildering.

The look she levels at him is unamused and doesn’t help with the “not scary” image.

“I give you explicit permission to enter,” he parrots back at her. She takes two resolute steps in and then shuts the door behind her. He takes the dish from her and sets the temperature on the oven. A peek inside the cover shows him that it's cooked already and just needs to be heated, so at least Natasha apparently isn’t planning for an hour-plus long visit. Or she is, but at least it won’t be spent awkwardly waiting for the food to cook.

She follows him into the kitchen but neither of them say anything while he gets everything ready. He doesn’t like her at his back and has to resist trying to keep her in his sights at all times. He doubts it would help much anyway. If she wanted to hurt him she could. (Why did he invite her in, again?)

“I’m not going to apologize for last time,” she says suddenly.

He turns around to lean on the counter, looking at her. “I didn’t ask you to,” he responds. He wouldn’t mind one though, now that the topic has come up. An apology might be nice, or at least common courtesy.

“I know, but you aren’t getting one. You wouldn’t have let me in otherwise, and I needed to make sure everything in here was fine. I did it the best way I could think of.”

“You said you could have just had me kicked out.” He’s not even sure why he says that, except that that gets under his skin, the idea that she could just uproot his own life for her own paranoid reasons. (Although, he wonders, is it paranoia if someone actually is trying to kill them? It seems a pretty big “if.”)

“I wouldn’t. Steve would get mad, and there’d be too much paperwork,” she says, and he once again can’t tell when she’s joking and when she isn’t. He thinks that it’s a joke. Maybe. He really has no idea if there would be much paperwork involved or not.

“Can I look around?” Natasha asks next. “I didn’t see it all last time.”

Bucky shoves down the urge to yell no and instead responds, “That’s a lie, but go ahead.”

They are silent as Bucky watches Natasha inspect everything in the kitchen and living room. She glances briefly into the bedroom and bathroom but doesn’t enter. Neither does she touch anything, and the occasional click of the oven keeping its temperature is the only interruption of the silence. Natasha is, as expected, light on her feet and she doesn’t even brush against any of the furniture as she slowly moves around the perimeter of the room, no doubt cataloguing every single detail in some mental file labelled “JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES, DIM NEIGHBOR.”

The silence isn’t uncomfortable, though, and Bucky finds himself inexplicably relaxing. There’s something nice and familiar about the careful competence of Natasha’s movements, which are in sharp contrast to her whirlwind actions of their previous interaction. He wonders if this is more like her real personality, or if she is purposely acting more benign to put him at ease and off his guard.

Before his paranoia can take hold, though, he is startled by the timer going off. Natasha turns on her heel to join him as he pulls the dish out, and passes him a plate so he can dish it out.

It’s interesting watching her, he thinks, from her careful tour of his apartment to the way she, at first glance, seems to be perfectly at ease as she carries a plate to his table but how he can just barely sense an undercurrent of wariness. He wonders if she is always like that, putting on an act, or if she is ever comfortable. He thinks it must be exhausting, and that small pang of sympathy helps him relax incrementally more.

She remains silent as she picks at her food, absentmindedly pulling out all the mushrooms and pushing them to the side. He wonders why she bothered putting them in if she doesn’t like them, and without prompting (spooky) she answers his unspoken thought.

“I didn’t make it.”

Bucky laughter is a mere huff, but he finds he can’t even be offended. “You didn’t make your own lasagna gesture?”

She shrugs. “I don’t have time for that sort of thing.” And then, with a small amount of reluctance underpinning her words: “I’m not a very good cook anyway.”

He answers her shrug with one of his own, cuts a bite off with the side of his fork and says, “Ah, well, everybody has to have flaws. Yours happen to be poor cooking skills and terrible first impressions.”

She levels a glare at him, but there’s no heat to it and a smile is lurking at the corners of her mouth.

“So why are you actually here?” he asks before she has a chance to keep them off topic.

“Like I said, I want to talk. About you, about what we’re doing here.” He doesn’t even know who “we” includes, so it’s an unhelpful statement.

“Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” he asks flippantly. He doesn’t want her here giving him vague statements and roundabout answers about why she apparently knows who he is, if that’s what that is. That helps no one. He can live with his curiosity if it means more peace.

“No,” she responds, “But I’ll get as close to it as I can without endangering anyone,” and he appreciates her apparent honesty even if he doesn’t necessarily appreciate the answer. He suspects it’s the best that he will get, and he has the impression that the fact that she’s here at all is an exception in itself and quite possibly a combination of boredom and free time. If she had more important things to do, she wouldn’t care to be remotely helpful to her friend’s unimportant neighbor.

“Then talk,” he says, pointing his empty fork at her. His mother would be appalled at his poor table manners if she were still alive to acknowledge them.

She sets her own fork down, and he has time to wonder if maybe he should have allowed her to take more than five bites before he no longer cares about her eating habits, because instead of saying something about the army or Steve or their apartment building or anything expected, she says the thing he was refusing to think about, the thing he has maybe expected her to know him from all along, since she exchanged that look with Steve on their balconies, because it’s really the only thing he doesn’t remember (refuses to remember) well enough for people he doesn’t recognize to know about and feel the need to be honest about. She says, “Do you remember Austria?”

And for a very brief moment, a moment she undoubtedly picks up but one that most people wouldn’t because he’s trained himself into keeping these moments very, very short, his mind blanks out. He forces his voice into nonchalance, though, or as close to it as he can get (he undoubtedly fails from her point of view, because she is far too observant for that) and he says, “What about it? The food? That time I fell off a rooftop in Wels? You’re going to to have to be more specific.”

She doesn’t deign to humor him though, which is fair enough since she has obviously put a lot of thought and effort into doing this, what with the lasagna and all, and at another time maybe he can think back on it and appreciate that, the carefulness, but her brutalness doesn’t allow her to back off like he now wants her to (his previous curiosity is better than this feeling) and she simply says, “I was there. I was part of the team that took down the facility,” and no thoughtfulness or amount of food can really make up for that.

And he doesn’t know how to respond to that. What is there to respond with, really? She was there. Presumably, because she is entirely too competent, she knows precisely what happened there, too. She probably has a quite literal file on him, not just a mental one, one that details that odd capture of him and five other men en route to base in Germany, the subsequent separation and torture and odd experimentation that he still doesn’t entirely remember or even nearly understand. He had been _so close_ to home, was supposed to leave the next week, and, well, it took quite a bit longer than that.

He remembers then, wonders how he could have forgotten even so briefly, that Steve recognized him too. His stomach plummets an amount completely disproportionate to the period of time he’s actually known the man, if two very brief interactions can even be called knowing a person.

It’s embarrassing, is the thing, immensely frustrating that he cannot ever escape it anymore, that under every single thing lurks that period of time that, in relation to the rest of his life, was brief. He carries it around attached to his left shoulder, in the way he has to force himself to leave his apartment some days for all that the fear of the world is so crippling, through his weekly therapy appointments and into his nightmares. He should not have trusted his immediate and inexplicable minor trust of these two people he met only days ago, because of course it’s there too. It makes his chest tighten and his fingers tingle, and he only becomes aware that he’s been silent for way too long and is practically staring a hole into a spot on Natasha’s right arm when his name infiltrates his hearing.

“Barnes? James?” she’s saying. She’s gazing at him with sympathy but a lack pity of pity. He sees more acceptance than anything, a simple acknowledgement of his reaction, his history, of him, really, and he could love her for that, a little. “You keep breathing for me, all right?”

He nods in acknowledgement, because he can do that. He does know how to do that, usually, keep breathing. Some days it’s all he can do.

She gives him a few moments. She doesn’t offer an apology, but it’s in the edges of her voice when she finally says, “Maybe I should have brought something stronger than lasagna.”

He doesn’t quite laugh but it lightens the air a bit anyway. He takes one last deep breath, lets it out slowly and then remarks, for lack of anything better to say, “No one’s called me James since my dad died,” which is really not helpful, not an improvement on a stifled panic attack at all, to bring up one’s dead parents, so he adds, “I prefer Bucky.”

She shrugs, slides over the dead dad comment. “I’ll probably stick to Barnes anyway. Can’t have us getting too friendly.”

“I don’t even know your last name,” he points out.

“Like I said, can’t have us getting too personal here.” She smiles a bit and it seems genuine enough, so he lets it go.

“Did you know…” he hesitates, his brain stalling on mentioning anything directly. “Did you make that connection before you moved in?” he asks finally. He decides to leave the questions about how much Natasha and Steve saw of him in there until another time. He’s not sure he’s currently up for confirmation that the answer is “quite a bit.”

The vestiges of her smile drops off her face and are replaced by her near-constant expressionless expression.

“Before Steve moved in,” she corrects, “But yes, I knew who you were. We had a few places to choose from. I remembered you, recognized your name. You didn’t seem like the type to stab your neighbor unexpectedly.” Bucky suspects that is the closest he will ever get to an admittance of any semblance of trust from her. It’s practically a glowing review of his personality. Or it’s a remark about how scarred he should be (is) and therefore how incompetent of an enemy he would make for someone who knew that. Whichever. “There’s a reason those researchers chose you to practice on,” she says, not unkindly, gesturing to his non-real arm ("Real!" his doctor's voice scolds). He has no idea what she means by that, but she talks over him when he opens his mouth to ask. “So I chose this building,” she says with a tone of finality.

Bucky tries not to huff in a combination of annoyance and frustration over his lingering anxiety. Instead he asks, “Why are you telling me all of this?” She’s giving him more information than necessary, after all, leaving hints between the margins of her words.

It’s her turn to hesitate. “Steve’s got enemies. We both do.” Another pause. Their conversations are made half of silence. “He needs someone competent next door, and someone steady. You’re both.”

Bucky has no response for that. She's taking a chance on him, he knows, and he doesn’t feel like a steady person at all. He feels like someone who longs to go back to the mystery of Handsome-But-Lacks-Furniture, to the quiet benignness of his life of less than a week ago.

(If he was forced to admit it even to himself, though, he might say he doesn’t mind that much, really, the excitement again. The purpose, the possible task ahead. It’s all right. The panic, well, maybe not so much, but he can deal with that.)

“He keeps saying I can’t distrust everyone,” she continues when it becomes apparent he isn’t going to say anything. “While I think he’s wrong, you seem like a good place to start. No pressure, Barnes, but you’re my first.”

She pushes herself up from her chair, picks up both of their respective plates. Neither of them have eaten all that much, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she takes them into the kitchen and swipes the half-eaten food into the garbage.

“I don’t trust you yet, though. I’m going to keep my eye on you.” She gestures to the TV with a nod of her head as she drops the dishes into the sink with a clatter. “Pick a movie. Something good. Steve’s apartment is so boring. He only owns books.”

It takes a moment for him to respond. He’s a bit shocked, certainly, unsure why she wants to watch a movie with him after the conversation they just had. It isn’t exactly a topic that encourages hanging around longer. He wonders with a combination of guilt and personal dislike if his want to not be alone is rolling off him in waves, if he seems like some sort of lonely, sad purposeless-soldier. He tries to push that down, though, tries to focus on all of the things his psychologist tells him (Well, not all. “Your brother-in-law is an idiot” is perhaps not the most useful thing he’s been told in therapy, but it certainly shocked him out of his self-pity at the time.) and determinedly decides to accept it. He likes Natasha, even as he hates her for her knowledge and her brazenness. It’s weird. Maybe he will have to learn to accept that as well.

He more or less chooses at random from what’s popular on Netflix and lands on _Bridget Jones’s Diary_. He refuses to be embarrassed by it even though it wasn’t a conscious decision.

Natasha scoffs as she falls heavily into her spot on the other side of the couch. “You call this good?” But not long into the movie he catches her smiling softly at the screen, and when she notices him looking at her she grins, says, “Not bad, Barnes. You did okay.”


	3. On Trust and Movies

It all happens rather quickly after that, unraveling the mysteries of his neighbor. It begins with a grocery store. It ends with a news broadcast. 

Of all the places where Bucky expects to finally have the beginnings of a conversation with Steve, “grocery store” is pretty low on the list, really. It’s below hallway, entryway, elevator and café, but above hardware store, Nordstrom and his doctor’s office. It’s in the middle, maybe, not entirely crazy (even weirdly handsome, creepily silent people have to eat) but unexpected enough to be unsettling when he rounds a corner to find himself more or less face-to-face with his mysterious, frequently absent neighbor. 

(Bucky was nearly starting to suspect Steve was a figment of his imagination. He’s seen Natasha five times in the last three days, twice for repeat performances of their movie watching time together. She rarely mentions Steve in any detail even though she seems to live in his apartment full-time now.) 

He turns into the aisle expecting to find Ziploc bags and instead finds his stupidly intimidating neighbor, and he thinks, “All I have in my basket is cranberry juice and individually packaged peanut butter Ritz Bits.” 

“Oh, hello!” Steve greets him, sounding entirely too earnest and friendly for someone who apparently spends his days under threat and mysteriousness. His own basket contains a single bunch of carrots and nothing else despite them being several aisles from the produce section, Bucky notices, which helps a bit.

Bucky takes a step back so he’s not staring at Steve’s chin, because that’s strange, he thinks, even though it’s a perfectly respectable chin. “Hey, how’re you?” he asks automatically, like he’s greeting a near-stranger. Which, he supposes, he is. He knows nothing about Steve even though Steve apparently knows more about Bucky than Bucky would ever wish anyone to. 

“Good, great,” is the nodded response. “I’ve been meaning to go talk to you, but…” he trails off, waves his hand vaguely and looks uncomfortable. “Work,” he finally settles on.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, even though he can’t really relate. The busiest his job gets is having to deal with two elderly people at once. 

“We should do that soon,” Steve continues. “Talk, I mean. I know you’ve met with Natasha, but she’s not always the best at not being terrifying.” 

That startles a short laugh out of Bucky, which he suspects was Steve’s goal when he gives a small smile in response. Bucky has the ridiculously, embarrassingly romantic notion of wanting to see a Steve smile properly. It settles the awkwardness a bit, at least.

He shrugs, says, “She’s not bad. We watched _Peter Pan_ last night and I think she secretly loved it.”

Steve looks simultaneously startled and, inexplicably, a little forlorn. The expression is gone in a moment, though, lost under a polite smile that isn’t nearly as nice as the one of moments ago. It’s less natural, but Bucky can’t pinpoint how.

“You’re fast friends, then,” he observes. 

“We do all right. Soon I might even get her to admit to liking something.” 

“Good luck,” Steve responds simply, airily. 

And then that’s it. Insert awkward pause as Bucky’s brain scrambles for something normal and not at all weird to say. 

He is forced to step to the side as an old man nearly bulldozes into him with a cart, and then what he lands on, horribly, is “You were there too, right? In Austria?”

And it’s not unexpected that it slips out since it’s been near the top of his thoughts since he first registered that it wasn’t in fact some random good-looking guy in the grocery store aisle but in fact a good-looking acquaintance that he couldn’t reasonably ignore, an acquaintance that apparently works closely with a woman who has fully admitted to being there. 

So it’s not unexpected, but it’s also not at all welcome and Bucky immediately wishes he could physically reach out and drag the words back in. 

Steve had been looking down the aisle, probably trying to come up with some way to escape Bucky’s presence without being rude, and he turns back to look at Bucky at his question. His gaze is steady, honest. It makes Bucky want to trust him even though he knows he shouldn’t, and so he looks away in turn. He wishes he could push Steve aside and bolt. Instead he keeps tabs on the other people in the aisle. The old man is now staring at the side of a bag of flour like it holds great secrets that will be revealed if he studies it long enough. A middle-aged woman hums a Katy Perry song as she picks up a container of cocoa, and interrupts herself with a small “Oh!” and turns back to also drop five bags of marshmallows into her cart. An unaccompanied child is looking at the boxed cake mixes, gnawing on his bottom lip.

“Yes,” Steve says simply after another brief moment, seemingly taking that space to decide straightforward is more appropriate than platitudes. The bluntness startles Bucky’s eyes into darting back to Steve’s face and then away again to track the middle aged woman’s progress down the aisle and around to the next one. 

“Why didn’t Natasha tell me that?” he asks, his annoyance at himself, at Steve, at the situation, seeping into his tone. The old man is still looking at flour. The kid is now holding two different types of chocolate cake. Bucky’s usually better at this, at hiding what he’s actually thinking and feeling and how many times he monitors where the people around him are situated, but this past week has been strange, too much, and these two people who have forced themselves into his life are overwhelming and simultaneously too frank and too vague. He longs to go back in time when his neighbor was simply some man who annoyed Bucky occasionally for completely banal reasons and not this new guy who knows way too much about Bucky’s worst moments.

“She doesn’t reveal anyone’s secrets without their permission,” Steve answers, and Bucky takes it for the reassurance it is meant to be. He wonders how many of Steve’s secrets Natasha is guarding. 

“Right.” He nods, still not looking directly at the man he’s supposed to be conversing with. “Right,” he repeats, like an idiot. “Well, I’m going to--” He waves toward the cash registers, and then, without looking again at Steve or giving him a chance to respond, flees.

*****

An apology in a hallway is warranted. It’s around 8pm and Bucky has finally caught Steve on his way back to his apartment after spending a significant portion of his day pretending he wasn’t listening for any sign of his neighbor returning.

“I’m sorry,” he announces. He wonders what happened to the carrots, since Steve isn’t carrying them now and he didn’t seem to return earlier. 

Steve looks wary when Bucky first pops out of his own apartment to spring an apology on him but then seems to perk up a bit at said apology, and it’s simultaneously endearing how relieved he looks and also a bit sad that Bucky put him in the position in the first place. He just waves him off, though, says, “It’s fine. We’re… it’s a lot to deal with.” There’s an undercurrent of weary acceptance, there, like Steve has resigned himself to his own situation and does not expect anyone else to care for it. 

The resignation in his voice forces Bucky to actually look properly at the man. He had been so wrapped up in his own head that it’s only then that Bucky notices how tired Steve looks overall. It’s only been about 9 hours since Bucky last saw him, but in the mean time he has managed to somehow acquire the look of someone who ran five miles after getting spectacularly beaten up and told something awful. He’s holding himself stiffly but otherwise doesn’t seem to be injured despite his overall “I’m injured!” air. Bucky can’t pinpoint what it is, though, just that it pings some sort of military carefulness instilled in him over the years, the kind that tells him to make sure someone doesn’t run themselves to the ground despite all of their reassurances. 

So, that’s what he does. He won’t ask because he doesn’t think Steve would tell him the truth and he doesn’t want to deal with what would likely be awkward misdirections and lies. (After his very brief interactions and several hints from Natasha, Bucky has determined Steve is a terrible liar even though lying seems to be part of his job, whatever that is.)

“Would you like to watch an apology movie?” he says instead, because in the absence of knowing what Steve actually likes, he’s decided to go with what Natasha seems to enjoy. One mysterious, frightening neighbor is like the other, right?

Steve now looks a weird combination of his previous feelings of relieved and wary. Bucky wonders if those are the only two he possesses. It’s a bit sad, really, if that’s all he has in his emotional arsenal. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says, though. “It’s fine, really.”

“I want to,” Bucky responds firmly, because apparently it only takes his protectiveness kicking in for him to sound perfectly confident again. 

Steve hesitates, and then seems to consciously let himself give in. “All right,” he says, with a decided nod. “Let me go change first, though.”

“I’ll order pizza.” Bucky’s going to cling onto this string of confident, decision-making statements for the next week as evidence that he’s doing all right. “Any preferences?”

Steve once again looks like he has to force himself not to protest, to retreat into his own apartment and stay there. It’s astounding, really, how much he gives away, and yet Bucky can’t get a hold on him at all. Instead of retreating, though, he just says, “No, anything is fine. See you in 20?” 

He gives time for Bucky to voice his agreement before he softly shuts his apartment door behind him. Bucky just looks at the door for a moment before going to order the food and choose something benign to watch.

*****

Steve falls asleep on Bucky’s couch 40 minutes into _Spirited Away_ , chosen mostly because Bucky hadn’t seen it in ages and Steve hadn’t seen any Ghibli film, which seemed like a bit of a gap in his movie-watching repertoire. He seemed to be enjoying it up until the sleeping happened. Bucky’s surprised he managed to relax enough for that at all, since until half an hour into the movie he seemed to still be on edge and uncomfortable.

Bucky lets the movie play through anyway, and then switches over to the TV where he, without any real intention, lands on a marathon of _Friends_ episodes that can be kept quiet without really losing the plot.

Shortly after midnight he hears the very quiet opening of the stairway door, and then, shortly after, Steve’s. Bucky sincerely hopes it’s Natasha and not one of those unknown bad guys sneaking into Steve’s apartment because he’s loathe to wake the man up. He somehow looks unrested even during sleep. Bucky has to force himself not to stare too much. 

It occurs to him, then, that if it is Natasha and not a vague unknown entity, she’s probably expecting Steve to be there. He quickly (quietly) launches himself across his own apartment and opens the door just as she is about to knock. Their respective timing is really quite astounding.

“He’s here,” Bucky says, his voice low so as to not wake the man in question. Natasha doesn’t look remotely surprised at his sudden opening of the door, although he does catch a brief flash of relief cross her eyes. 

She waits for Bucky to step aside before entering, and then pads on near-silent feet over to the couch to verify for herself. She looks at Steve a bit fondly, like he’s a toddler who has worn himself out and crashed on the first available surface. 

“So he is,” she just says, softly. She looks at him a moment longer before making her way into the kitchen. Bucky follows. 

Natasha doesn’t have enough tells for him to figure out whether she’s as worn out as Steve. She simply starts preparing herself the tea he only has because she said she liked to drink it. Her movements are as graceful and as quiet as ever, but he decides to venture, anyway, “Bad day?” He nods toward the other room where Steve has shifted but otherwise seems to still be asleep. It’s worth a try, seeing if he can drag some information out of either of them, and Steve is clearly uncomfortable with lying and is liable to be a very awkward conversation partner for that topic. (And a lot of topics, really, but Bucky will try not to hold it against him.)

She shrugs, and gives him as straight an answer as he will ever get from her. “We were trying to hold things together but that ended today. There was running, explosions, computer hacking, some bonding moments… it was all horribly glamorous,” she says dryly, and Bucky, as ever, is left wondering which parts of what she says are the truth and which are elaborations. 

“It’s good that he’s here, though,” she continues. “You’re good at taking care of people, Barnes.” She meets his eyes with such steadiness and confidence that any protest he wants to voice dies immediately. He suspects that was her goal. 

It is odd, though, to think of himself from that perspective. Natasha has seen so few of his interactions with anyone outside herself that he doesn’t doubt a lot of her opinion is conjecture and pulled from whatever it is filed away by the government under his name, but it’s a way he wouldn’t mind being seen. It’s flattering, even if he doesn’t know if it’s true. 

They’re largely silent as the water boils, and as Natasha gives it a minute or two to cool down a bit before pouring three identically-filled mugs. “Here’s your cup of candy-flavoured water,” she says, sliding one toward him. He might have bought tea just because she might want some, but he did refuse to buy the kinds that might taste like some sort of leaf. He had instead opted for a box of different fruit flavours, which, to be fair, do taste a bit like candy. 

“There is a chance that someone might come looking for Steve now that they’re no longer pretending to trust him,” Natasha says, leaning back against the counter again. “This place should be hidden enough, but you should know.” She meets his eyes again over the top of her mug, which she is holding close to her face even though the tea hasn’t steeped enough to drink yet. He appreciates that, her directness, even as she delivers unsettling news. “I trust that won’t be a problem if it happens.” 

There is, as is not uncommon, an unspoken threat lurking under her words. He feels a flash of annoyance at her supposition, a feeling worn down now by time. He does not have a choice in the matter, really, short of moving out, and he is not really in the position to do that. 

She’s making an effort, though, he can see, to try to gain his trust and go beyond simply commanding him around. He suspects the veiled threats and general distrust of people in general, even those she allows herself to relax enough around to sit on a couch watching movies with, has nothing to do with him. She is doing a job, whatever that job is. 

He wonders, too, if she delivers these veiled threats because Steve can’t or won’t. If Bucky has gathered much, it’s that Steve is the real target in this all. Natasha’s simply along for the ride, whether through obligation or friendship. 

So he just shoves it down as always, and as always she notices. She just nods, though, apparently satisfied with whatever she sees for now, and pushes herself away from the counter to take her own mug and another for Steve to the couch. She falls down beside him and somehow all of the tea stays where it should be and not on Bucky’s couch. 

Steve jerks awake, sitting up straight into full wakefulness. He relaxes minutely when he notices Natasha. She lets it play out, and then says, “Wake up, old man. You are being a terrible guest and I’ve brought you tea.”

Steve blushes slightly and glances back at Bucky, who has moved forward from the kitchen. He was about to make a protest about waking Steve up, but was already too late by the time it happened. Besides, it’s more adorable than should be possible on such a large man, how bashful he looks, and Bucky is forced to immediately squash the thought. (Not the time, Barnes.) Steve thankfully doesn’t seem to notice Bucky’s thoughts, and runs a hand over his face, taking the proffered drink with the other without seeming to really think about it. 

“Sorry,” he says, turning to face Bucky completely. “That was rude. I should go, if I am tired enough to fall asleep like that.” 

He moves to stand up even as he’s clutching his full mug of tea. Before he can get far, Natasha places a hand on his arm and he stops moving, even though the force she is exerting is not enough to even remotely hold him in place. 

“Sit down. Stay.” Her hand stays where it is as Steve visibly hesitates before slowly, carefully, sitting down beside Natasha again. Only then does she let him go. “Barnes, come here.” She doesn’t look at him, just points to the couch on the other side of Steve. “We’re going to act like we’re close and watch beautiful nature documentaries,” she says.

There’s not much left to do but obey her, so Bucky settles against the arm of the couch. It’s a bit awkward, all of them sitting in a row, but for both Bucky and Steve it seems to be a case of “what the terrifying possible secret agent asks for, the terrifying possible secret agent gets.” Steve, though, probably doesn’t have the confusion over whether she’s some sort of agent, a frightening assassin, or in some other uncertain we-never-speak-of-it occupation.

So they settle in (again) to watch a movie or whatever it is that Natasha chooses. Bucky doesn’t think he’s watched so many films and television shows in one week as he has this one, at least not since he was capable of doing more than sitting on the couch feeling physically weak and, yes, maybe moping a bit over his life in general. 

Steve somehow manages to fall asleep again almost instantly, his head back on the cushion and his body listing slightly toward Bucky so that his right arm is pushing against Bucky’s left. It’s embarrassing, a bit, that it is that side, and Bucky hates any circumstance that brings attention to his (not-real) left arm. His self-consciousness puts him on alert, makes it hard to relax, but he also knows it would be ridiculous to demand Natasha swap places and he can tell Steve is in one of those light half-sleeps of the exhausted-but-unwilling-to-admit-it, a half-sleep he would be easily woken up from if Bucky so much as shifted. So he stays absolutely still and stares at the television screen with a concentration only matched by Natasha, who is ostensibly watching _Planet Earth_ but is probably actually coming up with ten different plans in reaction to whatever happened today while keeping an eye on all of the entrances to Bucky’s apartment and gauging the exact temperature of her remaining tea. It would be comforting having someone who seems competent around if it weren’t for the aforementioned “terrifying” and the fact that Bucky absolutely refuses to trust these people who tell him nothing, even if his brain really seems to want to. 

In fact, going forward, he decides as he solidly ignores the struggles of the adorable polar bears on screen, that will be the title of his plan: Do Not Trust These People. Stop indulging Natasha’s love for watching movies in his apartment, stop finding Steve’s single-vegetable grocery shopping endearing, stop caring whether Steve has an appropriately furnished apartment--just, stop. (His therapist’s voice chirps angrily in the back of his mind to stop deliberately sabotaging any sort of relationship he builds, to which he argues that it is impossible to build a relationship with someone who won’t tell him what is actually going on. Even if he wants to. Which he doesn’t. At all. With either of them, in any way.)

Except right now Steve is precariously asleep and Natasha’s brain is clearly going a mile a minute even though she refuses to admit it or show it, and Bucky senses he’s probably the least stressed of them all even though he is, he thinks, quite possibly nearing a very large level of stress and his body feels a bit like it’s vibrating from the tension of “Oh, by the way, something or another came to a head today so please increase your wariness because someone might come searching for your troublesome neighbor.” 

So instead he very carefully eases himself up and then subsequently urges a now reluctantly awake Steve down onto his side while Natasha watches, looking on guard but also somehow appreciative, and then he goes and makes her more tea and gathers all of the snack food they have, and he lets her run through five episodes of _Planet Earth_ in silence as he sits on the floor, his back against the couch somewhere around Steve’s middle, Natasha occasionally poking him with a toe when she apparently thinks he is too close to falling asleep himself. He thinks she probably doesn’t want to be alone so, like so many other things, he allows himself to be kept awake until much too late.

Tomorrow he can stop indulging. Tonight he lets it go.

*****

His plan to distance himself from his aggravating neighbors fails spectacularly when the next day, quite tired and already on edge, he has the sudden suspicion that a woman dressed in dark clothing and holding herself with the confidence of the well-trained is quite likely out to invade his apartment, kill him, and then kill Steve and Natasha.

She’s not, it turns out. She’s simply a confident woman visiting someone else in the building, which he finds out when he follows her. Which then just makes him feel worse, because it makes him the creepy man in the building who follows women, and also doesn’t really help that much because she could actually still be planning to break in and is just biding her time with the man who has lived on the first floor for nearly two decades. 

Bucky knows it’s unlikely, extremely so, so instead of doing anything useful he calls in to work and then locks himself in his bathroom where there are no windows but he can still hear what’s going on in the rest of his apartment. He sits on the floor and pretends to care about the offerings of the Internet. 

It’s fine until about 2am when he is still sitting on his bathroom floor and feels like he is going to crawl out of his own skin. He’s going to escape, fly in all directions in an entirely dream-like and not at all disgusting manner. It’s metaphorical and also not, a tight quivering feeling that settles across his shoulders and down his limbs, excepting the one arm that can’t manifest anxiety. 

Normally this is when he would resolutely not scream into his pillow out of pure frustration, when he would solidly resist calling his sister because she’s the only person he has any semblance of closeness to anymore who doesn’t hold a doctorate or medical degree of some type. But, well, he’s spent most of his evenings in the last week on his couch watching movies with Natasha, and once Steve, and the past as many nights not sleeping a lot and the last two days way too vigilant and on edge, paranoid against his own logic that tells him there isn’t _really_ someone lurking everywhere trying to follow him home to kill his neighbors and by extension himself, even if Natasha told him to watch out. It’s not nearly his record, but he’s not used to this anymore and he’s ill-prepared to live like that again. It’s exhausting.

So then it’s 3am and he is standing outside a door having just knocked on said door, and the door opens to reveal Steve and oh, right, he’s the one who actually lives in the apartment, not Natasha, and so it’s entirely reasonable that he would be the one to answer the door.

Bucky says nothing, offers no explanation why he just knocked on their door at _three o’clock in the fucking morning_. He really should, but he doesn’t. He just stares blankly because he had been prepared for Natasha, who has maybe sort of become a weird version of a friend despite the lack of trust and short timeframe, and instead he got Handsome-Man-Who-Slept-on-Bucky’s-Couch-But-Has-Enemies and, God, he is tired. 

“Bucky?” Steve asks. It’s weird hearing his name come out of Steve’s mouth. It almost sounds normal. Steve looks concerned and on guard, as well as an assortment of other emotions that are entirely reasonable. “Is everything all right?”

“Barnes?” Natasha asks, suddenly coming up from behind Steve. She looks a bit sleep-rumpled but otherwise wide awake. She was probably in the background with a gun ready. Smart, what with the apparent enemies lurking everywhere who would knock on doors at 3am. 

“This is your fault,” he says, pointing at her. Accusing her isn’t at all what he meant to do, but that’s apparently what’s happening, because somehow accusing Steve seems like accusing a puppy. It’s probably the puppy’s fault, but somehow you want to think it couldn’t really help it anyway. 

Natasha, though, is an easier target because she’s consistently confident and distant, apparently unaffected by what anyone around her does (although Bucky knows that can’t possibly be true). She doesn’t go on the defensive, which he knows he shouldn’t expect from her but sort of wanted to happen anyway, just to make this all simpler. Instead she just frowns and pushes around Steve. She still holds herself at the ready, which he appreciates from a protective, past-highly-trained-military point of view but appreciates less from a subjective standpoint because it also keeps him on edge, like this has suddenly turned into an unwanted and unexpected combat situation. He’s not really sure why he ended up at their door, to be fair, but it wasn’t to fight.

It wasn’t to be coddled either, though, which is the impression he gets when she says in a soothing, low voice, “Should we go back to your apartment and have a talk?” It’s a perfectly innocuous, nice thing to say but for some reason it grates on Bucky’s nerves. He unreasonably wants her to use her obvious intelligence to somehow know exactly what he wants from this situation even though he doesn’t know either, and she got it wrong. 

Steve frowns as well, like he can sense something is off beyond the fact that Bucky appeared at their door in the middle of the night looking frazzled and undoubtedly entirely off-center. 

“I’ll go,” he says, like Bucky has to be taken back across the city instead of just to the next door over. There’s a thread of command lurking under his words, even though said words were so few, a confidence that he hasn’t brought out around Bucky yet. It’s bolstered when Natasha opens her mouth to protest and Steve just shoots her a look that silences her before she can even speak. She looks annoyed but she nods, steps back again for him to pass. She’s taken the lead in most things between the two of them so far, so it’s strange seeing her fall behind Steve’s words like that. 

Bucky just turns on his heel and leaves them, because he’s suddenly horribly embarrassed and confused by the very short interaction and he still feels like he is going to burst apart. He narrowly avoids catching Steve with his door after he hurriedly follows Bucky’s retreat. Natasha’s left to the secret spy equivalent of listening through a glass to the wall, Bucky thinks spitefully.

Steve seems entirely too assured for someone who is wearing worn-looking pajama bottoms, a loose white t-shirt and no shoes in the middle of Bucky’s entryway. He doesn’t look anything but worried, but Bucky doesn’t think he even deserves that because Steve doesn’t know him at all, only knows him as the neighbor he has had way too many awkward interactions with. 

Bucky somewhat wildly thinks he should offer him a drink or something to eat or whatever else it is you offer a near-stranger who you have just woken up in the middle of the night, but he can’t think of what he should do and his chest is caving in now so he just forces out, “I’ll be right back” and retreats back to the safety of his bathroom and a closed door, where he proceeds to hold onto the edge of the sink to crouch down awkwardly and just breathe. 

He doesn’t have a panic attack, not quite, and he thinks he should get some sort of award for continually avoiding that in the midst of all of that has gone on. After a few minutes there’s a quiet knock at the door, and Steve’s soft, “Bucky? I’m just out here, if you need me.” 

Bucky doesn’t respond but Steve doesn’t seem to expect him to. It sounds like he just settles against the wall outside the door. 

It feels like hours but is only probably about half of one before Bucky forces himself to emerge. Steve is indeed sitting on the floor just beside the door, and he looks up at Bucky from that position and offers a small smile. 

“All right?” he asks simply. 

Bucky nods, looking down at him. He looks smaller from this angle, and the dim light filtering through the windows (Bucky realizes he hadn’t turned any lights on outside the bathroom, and apparently neither had Steve) makes him look softer, less tightly-wound and grave. He looks entirely too good and comfortable on Bucky’s floor, which is a ridiculous thought. 

“I can’t figure you out,” are the words that come out of Bucky’s mouth, to his own horror, without him really even thinking them before hand. He immediately feels his face heat, and hopes that the angle and the lack of light hides it from Steve. 

It must, or Steve simply doesn’t care, because although he looks a bit startled, he just says, fairly, “You don’t have a lot to work off.”

“And whose fault is that?” Bucky asks, though there’s no real bite to his words. He moves around Steve to his left so he can sit down beside him. For some reason that seems like the most appealing option right now, sitting beside Steve on his apartment floor. 

Steve’s eyes follow him and he answers, direct, “I would tell you it all if I could.” 

Bucky finds himself believing him for no reason, even though they barely know one another and Steve has many reasons to lie to him and very few to tell the truth. He sounds sincere, though, and serious, and he meets Bucky’s eyes with a steadiness that few people offer. Him and Natasha, Bucky thinks wryly, must have been trained in the way of steady, confidence-inducing stares. He doesn’t trust them, but it’s proving very hard to resist it.

Bucky doesn’t respond to his words, because he doesn’t know what to say that wouldn’t seem like he is trying to pry anyway. They are silent for a few minutes, and then Steve asks, voice still quiet, “Want to talk about what happened there?” 

His embarrassment over his earlier strange impulse to knock on his neighbors’ door returns with a vengeance, making him try to brush it off, his voice forcibly light. “Nah, just tired.” 

“It seemed like a bit more than that,” Steve says, which is aggravating because Bucky wants him to let it go, for them to just sit quietly in the dark and for Bucky to not have to be alone.

“It’s just been a strange couple of weeks,” he says, which is as close to honesty as he wants to get. Steve looks ashamed though, like he brought it all on by himself and there was no contribution from Bucky’s own faulty brain, so he quickly adds, “I’ve dealt with worse. It’s fine. It’ll pass.”

That doesn’t seem to help at all, because Steve continues to look oddly distressed. 

Bucky speaks before Steve can, because he doesn’t want to risk pity. “It’s been nice, though, having people around, even if you guys have the Mysterious and Good-Looking But Dangerous thing going on all the time.” Then he realizes that doesn’t help at all, because it implies he didn’t have people around before, which is more or less true but not something he generally likes advertising to the world, especially when that world is Steve, who in other circumstances might be someone he would be really tempted to push against a wall, and not in the violent manner he expects is the most likely wall-pushing to happen where Steve's weird, apparently dangerous life is concerned. “Panicked and lonely” isn’t really the type of person you want to be involved with, unless it’s out of pity or something else misguided and embarrassing.

“I enjoyed last night,” Steve says, instead of anything that recognizes how humiliating Bucky is being. Bucky wonders if Steve had slept at all before Bucky unceremoniously knocked at his door, to think that what was now technically two evenings ago was last night. “I know it’s usually just something you and Natasha do, but it was nice.” 

He isn’t meeting Bucky’s eyes, and he wonders if Steve somehow thinks he was intruding even though he was invited. So Bucky just shrugs it off, says, “Don’t lie. You slept through most of it.” 

It’s Steve’s turn to look ashamed, and his voice is a bit hesitant, like he’s confessing something huge, when he says, “That alone would’ve been enough.”

Bucky has nothing to say to that, because it’s not like he hasn’t suspected all along that Steve lives a high-stress life. It’s probably low on sleep and high on adrenaline. It’s strange though, how out of place he often seems, except during that odd bout of confidence he had shown tonight, a bit like he’s lost and simply bumbling along under Natasha’s direction. 

“Anytime,” Bucky finally settles on after a silence that is slightly too long. 

Instead of responding, Steve just leans slightly against him and offers him a smile half-hidden by the shadows created by the light from the window. Bucky hesitates, and then awkwardly pats Steve on his raised knee, and immediately feels like a bit of an idiot. 

Steve grabs his hand before it can retreat, though, grasping it across the back, and it’s even more like they’re teenagers, sitting in a dimly lit hallway and thinking large thoughts and feeling acres of teenage angst while holding hands. 

“All right?” Steve just asks, again, to the air in front of him, and Bucky thinks he’s talking both about his near-panic earlier and the way Steve’s thumb is now passing alongside the edge of Bucky’s hand unconsciously. 

“Yeah,” Bucky responds, because it really is, for all that it’s ridiculous. 

He lets his hand relax again against Steve’s knee, and gives it a light squeeze. It’s silly and feels a bit like he’s giving in to something he shouldn’t be, but it’s nice. Maybe it’s what he was looking for when he knocked on their door thinking he would get Natasha. He just needed someone to sit on the floor in the dark with him, a steady and quiet presence against his side.

*****

Three days later, the teenage daughter of one of the volunteers is sitting at one of the computers when she emits a much too loud, “Oh, my God!”

Luckily no one else is around to hear it, and Bucky’s about to tell her it’s really not a great idea to blaspheme in a religious library, when he catches what’s on her screen and it freezes the words in his throat. The video stream is silent because the girl is using headphones, so he can’t tell what’s going on exactly, but it’s Steve, surrounded by armed men, a gun aimed directly at him, and Bucky can only watch as he’s lead away from the camera’s view.


	4. On Weaponry and Safe Houses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added Aug 4: SORRY. This is not abandoned, I promise. I'm just terrible.

Bucky is forced to stay at work for another two hours out of that obligation to the job that cuts through mass confusion and near panic. It shouldn't, but it does. It’s a different sort of panic than he's used to, though, a panic for someone else rather than himself. It’s not the type that requires counting or breathing exercises or locking himself away. Instead it’s the type that lurks in his chest and throat with an overwhelming sense of _worry_.

There’s no one to cover his shift and the teenage girl with the helpful news feed on her screen left shortly after Father Peter made it his mission to keep Bucky away from both his computer and his phone and therefore any useful Steve-related information by insisting he help him find every book on five entirely different topics, as if the priest wasn’t in the library every week and didn’t know how to do it all himself. The elderly, Bucky thinks, can be horribly irritating at times.

It’s banal and drives Bucky a bit insane, pulling books down off the shelves only to have them declared insufficient. They do not contain any information on why Steve had a gun to his head, so Bucky agrees that they are wholly unuseful as his fingers itch for his phone and its Internet access, or even the old, lagging computer at the desk. It occurs to him for the first time that he has no way of contacting Natasha or Steve--that they could simply disappear, become a weird interlude in his life that he might think back on in his old age, if he makes it there. He doesn’t like how weirdly painful a thought that is, to lose the tentative beginning stages of friendship with Natasha and whatever it is that happened with Steve on the floor of Bucky’s apartment. He has to trust that at some point one of them will contact him, even if it’s just another sticky note in an envelope attached to his door from Natasha. (He doesn’t trust, not really.)

(He refuses to think of Steve as dead, of that gun returning to his head, because that’s a mental path not worth going down.)

As soon as the doors are locked behind him, Bucky whips out his phone. The news is uninformative, though, except to decry SHIELD agents gone awry, causing critical injuries and traffic delays. Bucky thinks it ridiculous really, how many are telling him to avoid that part of the city on the commute home in the face of everything else, of Steve and Natasha being involved in this, of _Steve having a gun to his head_. But, well, SHIELD. That’s more information than Bucky had before, even if SHIELD has always been one of those strange, vague government entities he knows little about simply by virtue of there being little to know. It’s unsurprising that the mystery of Steve would be connected to the mystery of SHIELD.

He makes it home in record time, although he isn’t sure to what point. He doesn’t know what mystery he was hoping to solve by bursting into his apartment as if Steve (or Natasha) would simply be standing there explanation at hand. It’s an oversight, a weird move bred mostly from an instinctive need to get to somewhere his brain associates with Steve not being in danger. 

And then he bursts into his apartment, and he has enough time to hear a gunshot and hate himself for not being on his guard already. He’s trained himself out of that, though, tried so hard to feel safe in his own living space. He knows it’s normal to not expect to be shot in his own home, but he hates himself a bit. Luckily it wasn’t aimed anywhere vital and he has enough ingrained sense to move fast enough that the bullet grazes his right, real, that’s-the-one-that-will-bleed arm just below the elbow instead of hitting him directly, but then there’s a gun to his head as well. Or one aimed at him from across the room anyway, and of course this would happen now. He doesn’t doubt it’s in some way attached to Steve, or he has some seriously aggressive robbers who for some reason decided to target his apartment out of all the more easily accessible ones in the building. 

Bucky freezes and fights against the instinct to move into action as calm settles over him. This he knows. Fighting he can do, even if he’s out of practise and has no weapons at hand. He’s managed before, he can do it again, even as he pushes down the small part of him that pipes in that he hasn’t done it with his new (and untested, although scientifically very advanced and useful) arm. Instead of fighting, though, he drops into the persona of confused and innocent. He doesn’t know who these people are and it’s entirely possibly they don’t know who he is either, so he might as well let them think he’s not a threat. He would really rather avoid those guns being used further. 

He lets a surprised, extremely nervous and also pained expression fall over his face, the expression of someone who just entered his home to find three strange men in it and really doesn’t want to be shot again but doesn’t know how to handle that. He backs up a step and says, loudly like it’s simply fallen out of his mouth, “Who are you?”

The man with the gun doesn’t answer his question (Of course not. That would be polite, and what random gun-wielding person in Bucky’s apartment would be polite?) but instead takes a few steps closer. 

“Where’s Rogers?” he asks after a brief moment where he simply stares at Bucky. The other men are also staring and on guard. There’s a lot more staring than necessary, really. 

The staring gives Bucky’s brain a moment to cycle through rapid-fire thoughts. There’s brief confusion over who Rogers is until it occurs to him that they either mean Steve or Natasha, but there’s a heavy sinking feeling in his stomach when he places the name Steve with the last name Rogers, because he knows that name (everyone knows that name) even if he doesn’t know the face. Most people don’t know the face, to be fair, because Steve Rogers/Captain America more often than not is portrayed with his helmet on, anonymity and American Symbol all rolled up into one disassociated propaganda tale. 

Bucky has a brief moment to feel stupid, to open his mouth to hopefully retort something witty and cutting instead of “Oh, my God, have I been living beside Captain America?” before his door, which had fallen mostly shut, flies open again. Luckily he had placed himself out of the way of the inward swing of the door or it would have nailed him in the back of the head, which would have been icing on the cake of this week. 

Apparently door-bursting is the Gun Guy’s signal to shoot, and the gun goes off and Bucky is diving out of the way before he even really thinks of it. He throws the nearest object (a heavy decorative glass horse, because his sister has strange taste) toward the three men and hears it connect with someone. It’s not actually a deterrent but it’s enough of a distraction for Bucky to get into the kitchen without being shot in the side, because there’s now three guns and a fourth mystery person who just ran into his apartment and was immediately forced to duck behind a chair for cover. 

Between the horse and the awkward angle that means the bullets fired toward him connect with the wall more than anything vital, Bucky also has enough time to grab the knife block and pull as many knives out of it as he can. His gun is across the apartment, unfortunately, not at all useful at the moment, but the knives will work. He keeps one on hand, and the others are thrown before he even thinks it through. They’re not ideal, but, well, they’re sharp enough. Door Man had been emerging from behind the chair but is forced to duck down again, swearing, to avoid a knife to the shoulder. It hits the doorjamb with a dull thump instead, wedging into the wood with enough force for Bucky to spare an appreciation for his own skills that apparently haven’t faded as much with time as he would have thought. A small, rather pathetic one connects with Random Guy #1 in the forearm, and he narrowly avoids dropping his gun. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t, but Bucky can’t have it all. Neither can he have the next one, when Gun Guy jumps aside before the knife aimed at him can hit home. It hits the wall at an angle that leaves it clattering down behind the TV stand. 

The last one isn’t out of his hand yet when he hears, “Barnes!” He barely registers his own name before a gun is flying his way. A shot is fired, but Door Man is aiming at the other three and not at Bucky, and it only takes an instant for him to switch gears from “Door Man is an enemy” to “Oops, I threw a knife at a possible ally.” 

The gun is caught in his left hand and then is in his right in an instant, the knife forgotten beside him. It only takes five well-aimed shots in quick succession (three knees, a shoulder, an arm) for him to disable the Bad Guy Trio enough for him to then run over and get their respective weapons out of the way. He’s aimed to injure, not kill, but the fact that these three were taken down so easily tells him that they weren’t exactly the best that Nameless Nefarious Organization had to offer. It would be insulting if it weren’t a bit of a relief. All three of them are glaring at them, and Random Guy #1 looks a bit like he’s going to be ill around his glare, the knife still sticking pathetically out of his arm. The glass horse lies a shattered mess on the floor.

Bucky’s breathing hard, but his hand is steady as he keeps his gun on the trio. Door Man has emerged from the chair and has taken a couple steps toward their little grouping before Bucky has, without real thought, picked up one of the guns he just took from the other men and aimed it at him. It’s awkward positioning, being between the two threats, and it’s his left hand, so it’s functional but a bit slower and not preferable and also not really trained with a gun. His doctors, it turned out, didn’t exactly encourage that type of thing as a physiotherapy technique. Door Man doesn’t have to know that though, that Bucky’s aim is quite possibly awful with his left hand (but also possibly not). 

Door Man immediately stops moving, his hands going up. He’s still holding his own gun, and he must notice Bucky’s eyes flick to it before moving back to him, and then back to the three men, and God, this is really not an ideal situation that he wants to deal with. He must see, though, because he loosens his grip on it and says, calmly, “I’m just going to put this down,” like they have all the the time in the world, like the rest of the building won’t have heard the commotion and called the police. He’s as good as his word and sets his weapon down on the chair he’s just emerged from behind.

“Who are you?” Bucky asks, and thanks no one in particular that his voice comes out as steady and confident despite the adrenaline and the blood running down his forearm under the sleeve of his coat.

“Sam Wilson,” he answers, immediate and without any hesitation to mark it as a lie. Not that that makes it the truth, but. “Steve sent me. He was worried something like this might happen.” He nods toward the three men still glaring at Bucky from the floor. 

The relief that he feels to hear Steve spoken about like he’s still alive, both by Gun Guy and Door Man/Sam Wilson, settles in abruptly, disproportionate to the amount of worry Bucky had let himself feel over the opposite possibility. It’s staggering actually, against everything else.

Wilson must read it, a bit, because he says with a small smile, “He’s good. We got out. He just couldn’t come himself right now.” 

Bucky nods, and then it occurs to him with a certain amount of guilt: “Natasha?”

Wilson’s smile drops off. “She got hit in the shoulder but she’ll be fine. She’s strong.” 

Bucky takes a moment to process that while also trying not to let his guard drop on the angry trio on his apartment floor. It’s ridiculous, this whole situation he’s found himself in. It’s even more ridiculous when someone pops up in the doorway behind Wilson, and Bucky only has a moment to take in “Gun aimed our way” and “Not law enforcement” before he’s fired at whoever it is, hitting them in the shoulder because apparently arms are where it’s at today. The guy drops back into the hall, and Wilson’s gun is in his hand again before Bucky even registers that he used his left hand, that his right is still steady on the men on the floor who made a move to get up at the other man’s entrance before falling still again at the gunshot, that he apparently believes Wilson enough to not think him a particular threat. He offered information, probable information, and Bucky doesn’t trust him but he’s about the best he’s got right now, because apparently there’s at least one more Random Bad Guy lurking in the building and he probably shouldn’t hang around here much longer. They’re looking for Steve, and Bucky’s the closest they’ve got to information right now, so removing himself from the building is safest for everyone else in the building. Probably. Hopefully. He’s not sure what else to do, otherwise. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Wilson says, once again like he’s somehow read Bucky’s thoughts. It’s eery. “You need anything?” he waves a hand at the room around them, and Bucky spares a stupid, brief thought for his possessions, a mild worry that someone will decide to trash the place when they’ve found that Bucky has shot four of their Evil Organization Minions. 

He shakes his head, though, because he doesn’t--he’s got his wallet and his phone and that’s all that really matters in the end, despite the pang that settles in his chest at the idea of losing all his things. Wilson nods, readiness falling over his shoulders before he gets the guy in the hall, knocks him out before beckoning for Bucky to follow. He quickly does, leaving the Bad Guy Trio on his floor. They’ll probably get away, but he can’t care much for that right now as long as they aren’t able to shoot him as he leaves. 

They don’t meet anyone else on the way out, and Wilson leads them toward an idling car right outside the front doors in the loading zone. Except then Bucky hesitates before getting in because this could all be a trap. Sam Wilson could be lying. He could be with Menacing Evil Organization. He could be all sorts of things that would lead Bucky into something unpleasant. 

Wilson’s half in the car before he notices that Bucky hasn’t made a move to open the door. He doesn’t seem annoyed at Bucky’s wariness, though. He just looks at him and then pulls his phone out of his pocket, dials, says, “Rogers, tell your boy to get in the car. The police will be here soon and there will be awkward conversations if we don’t leave.” 

He tosses the phone to Bucky over the roof of the vehicle with a confidence that Bucky would never have throwing his own phone around. He gets in and shuts the door behind him, apparently assured that whoever is on the other end (it might not be Steve) will be able to convince Bucky to get in instead of just bolting the other way. 

“Bucky? You there?” comes the voice and it’s either a really good impression or it actually is Steve on the phone, his voice deep and calm and weirdly familiar with only a small hint of worry lurking underneath. 

“You’re paying for all my stuff that just got wrecked,” he responds, instead of anything useful, because he’s trying to hide the second wave of massive relief he feels at having confirmation that Steve’s alive and probably mostly fine, that the gun aimed at his head really was temporary. “I was really attached to that horse.”

There’s a quiet breath of laughter, but then he doesn’t acknowledge the comment, just asks, “You’re all right?” 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Bucky says, even as he can feel the blood making his coat stick to his arm. It’s minor, just an ache that is starting to set in.

“Good,” Steve says, a measure of his own relief leaking into the word. “Look, you don’t have to, but Sam can get you somewhere quieter.” 

He doesn’t feel like arguing, like giving in to his own paranoia that screams that this could still be a trap, so he answers, “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Great. Good,” Steve says, again. Apparently everything is good and all right and fine all around, despite the massive increase in weaponry in Bucky’s life today. It’s weird that not long ago he was at work surrounded by books and an annoying priest, and now he’s bleeding while leaning against a car and trying to ignore the huge comfort it is to hear Steve continue with, “I’ll see you in a bit.” 

So Bucky says his goodbyes and slides into the passenger seat, handing Wilson his phone back. Wilson just nods, says, “All good?” which is ridiculous, an overabundance of the use of the word “good” between all three of them for a situation that isn’t really all that good at all, and he waits for Bucky to nod his agreement before pulling away from the curb. 

They’re quiet, Bucky keeping watch for followers and Wilson following some circuitous path toward their destination, until ten minutes into wherever they’re going when Wilson suddenly says, “Shit, man, are you bleeding?” 

“Er,” Bucky says eloquently, because he obviously is and it seems stupid to lie about it when there’s a tear in his coat, he’s holding his arm awkwardly, and the blood has run down to his hand. 

Wilson pulls over abruptly into a parking lot of an insurance firm. “Steve’ll hate that you got shot. Not that I like it either.”

“It didn’t hit me. It’s just a graze,” Bucky responds, as he is prodded into angling his right arm toward the driver’s seat. 

Wilson pauses in his movements to level a no-nonsense stare at Bucky that makes him appreciate that Steve at least has this guy on his side. “That means you did get hit, actually. Just not how they meant you to,” he says, which is maybe a good point but not one Bucky particularly cares to acknowledge, so he stays silent as Wilson carefully inspects the wound before he pronounces, “I don’t have much to help you now but you’ll live until we get back to base,” which Bucky already knew and could have told him but it seems to help for Wilson to have his own confirmation. 

He lets Bucky resettle before starting the car again, and they resume their silent journey. He's fine with that, the quiet, because he’s not really up for idle conversation with someone he doesn’t know. Wilson seems nice enough, sure, but the adrenaline is wearing off and his arm hurts and there’s that idea that he should be feeling more anxious than he is, the type that leaves him worried something’s lurking in his future, that the calm he felt during the fight must have been displaced and will have to be bought later with a massive-scale panic of some sort. It’s illogical and not how the brain really works, he knows, but, well, he’s tired and slowly leaking blood out of his arm and he doesn’t know why Steve is in this huge mess or where he’s going, so he just sits, silent, and pretends for a moment that it’s not all happening.

Eventually they get where they’re going, what looks to be a rundown plant outside the city. It’s weirdly silent after the loudness of the day and the city, but Wilson seems confident in where they’re going so Bucky just follows along because no one’s told him not to yet. 

They end up in a room, poorly lit and with the crappy metal furnishings that people doing secret things somehow find in bulk. Steve’s on his feet, looking worn. Natasha’s leaning back on an uncomfortable looking chair, appearing as casual as anything, like she hasn’t just been shot. There’s two other people in the room, a man and a woman, both of them wearing heavy, untrusting stares. 

“You weren’t supposed to bring him back here,” the man says, and he might only have one eye visible but it glares at Wilson enough for both.

Wilson just shrugs. “He asked,” he answers with a gesture to Steve. 

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but Bucky cuts him off before he gets past the first sound. “Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” His voice comes out harsher than he really means it to, but at the moment all he wants is a full explanation and one of those ugly chairs to sit in. 

“Where’d the doctor go?” Wilson asks, cutting Steve off again before he can say anything. He shuts his mouth for a second time, looking annoyed before the expression slides into worry. “Barnes here got the edge of a bullet to his arm.” 

“You said you were fine!” Steve finally gets in before anyone else can say something before him. 

“It _is_ fine,” Bucky answers, taking his turn to glare at Wilson, who in turn levels a look at him. Natasha looks more amused than someone with a gunshot wound should be able to look.

The man with the eye patch just sighs, and waves a hand to the door. “Go fix him up, Rogers, and get whatever this is you two have going on sorted out, and then I want you back here ready to work,” he says, his voice stern. 

Steve’s back to looking annoyed and like he wants to argue, but he just nods and moves around the table to Bucky. “Can we all take this opportunity to take a break?” Wilson asks, some of his own exhaustion slipping into his words. 

“Yeah, why isn’t Natasha resting, if she just got shot?” Bucky asks, having just caught a small, suppressed wince when she shifted in her chair. He thinks maybe she’ll be annoyed that he’s gone all protective on her, like he’s questioned her abilities, but she just smiles, soft and reassuring. 

“Fine, get out out of here, all of you. Be back in three hours,” the other man commands. Wilson’s on the move immediately, and Natasha is more slow about it but no less graceful than usual. The woman who hasn’t spoken at all stays seated, but before Bucky can give her any more thought Steve has put a hand lightly on his back and steered him out of the room.

They don’t go far, just down the much too creepy hallway and into another, much smaller room that has a cot, a chair, a small table and, very helpfully, a box of first aid supplies. 

“Sit,” Steve commands more than invites. Bucky does so despite the part of him that wants to argue that Steve give him some information first. It’s a stupid urge built more out of his own stubbornness than any real logic, since while information is important, so is not bleeding all over himself. So he just sheds his ruined jacket and opts for sitting on the bed instead of the awful looking chair. At least the cot has a thin mattress. 

Steve exits again to go wash his hands before returning to sit beside Bucky and set to work on his arm. His touch is gentle but competent, and Bucky has a brief flash of disbelief. _Captain America_ is cleaning blood off his arm. Captain America for some reason moved in next door to Bucky. No wonder some mysterious entity was after him. No wonder Natasha seemed like some highly trained security detail slash spy. Captain fucking America. 

He’s still Steve, though, even if now Bucky can have weird thoughts like, “I wonder if he learned any of his medical skills during World War II?” as Steve sorts through the first aid kit for whatever he's looking for. He forces himself to remember that, that this is the man who has no furniture of his own because he bought the former occupant’s, that this guy fell asleep on his couch more than once in the same evening, that this is the same person who always seems so uncertain, lost in his own life. Captain fucking America indeed. 

“You couldn’t have mentioned your last name was Rogers at some point?” Bucky asks when the silence is becoming too heavy. 

Steve’s hands barely falter before he says with an evenness that seems a bit forced, like he doesn’t know how Bucky is going to react, “It seemed safer not to.” 

“Safer how? For who?” 

“We were going for anonymity,” Steve says, as if that answers the question.

He can’t help the annoyance in his tone when he asks, “Do you two ever talk clearly?”

Steve looks up at him briefly, a surprised expression on his face like he hadn’t realized he ever did what Natasha does all the time, talking in half-truths and only giving part of the story. “Sorry,” he apologizes. He’s left his gloved fingers resting on Bucky’s arm. One finger taps idly, gently, before he looks back down to complete his task. He’s nearly finished cleaning the wound, going about it more carefully than is probably warranted. 

“We didn’t want anyone to know who we were. Natasha’s good at enforcing that sort of thing. I got her to let me use our real first names because I knew I’d mess it up otherwise.” He gives Bucky a small smile that makes Bucky suspect that might be a bit of a lie, that Steve probably would've remembered just fine but didn't want to, before he looks down again to apply the anesthetic. It’s weaker than anything Bucky could have gotten from a doctor, but he also isn’t sure he wants Steve stabbing at his arm with a needle and some numbing is better than none. 

“It had nothing to do with you,” he continues, reassuring even though Bucky had already gotten that point. His fingers are still resting on his arm like he’s holding it in place while he waits for the anesthetic to act. “I’m not sure what you already heard, but Natasha and I work--worked for SHIELD. So did Fury and Hill. A few weeks back, someone shot Fury while he was at my apartment.” Steve pauses, silent for a few minutes that drag on but Bucky is loathe to interrupt before saying, grim smile in place, “Does it count as a pattern if people try to commit murder at your apartment twice, or does it take three?” 

“I’d say it’s damn bad luck.” He watches Steve prepare for the stitches, trying not to think too hard about whether or not he’s qualified to be doing this. He adds to cover the vague nervousness crawling in his throat, “Besides, this time it was my apartment.” 

Steve’s laugh is quiet. He steadies Bucky’s arm again, glances up long enough to somehow decide whether Bucky’s ready or not before he sets to work on the sutures. It pulls, a bit, isn’t entirely numb enough not to hurt a small amount, but he’s tidy and careful, silent as he works. Bucky forces himself to look away from the overwhelming sense of “Captain America is suturing my arm.” He will get over it, eventually. Hopefully.

They remain quiet until Steve finishes, Bucky afraid to break his concentration, and then he dresses the area. Everything is very neat and well-done, and he would easily admit to being impressed. The competence is encouraging and, well, attractive to be honest, which Bucky doesn't think he should say out loud.

Steve he stands up to dump all the dirtied supplies into the garbage and then snaps off the gloves before handing Bucky a bottle of Tylenol. “Sorry, I should've given you this earlier. It doesn’t do much for me for long so I just… forgot,” he says, looking sheepish. Bucky wonders what that’s like, to know that any pain just has to be put up with until it passes, but it's another uncomfortable thought that has to be shoved aside. “Natasha might have something stronger if you need it.” 

He wouldn’t mind it eventually, but he suspects he’s not alone in refusing anything else right now, so he just nods and takes the bottle. “If only all of us had your strength of will to power through an injury,” he says.

“Ah, well, the world has a quota on people like me,” Steve responds, his tone dry. 

“Strong, handsome, and mysterious?” Bucky asks, and then immediately regrets it because _still not the time, Barnes_. 

The response is just a laugh, though, and a nod, “Exactly. But I’ll have to resist being mysterious and be right back. I’ll get you water, and then answer questions.” 

He’s as good as his word, returning a minute later with two bottles of water, one of which he passes to Bucky before resettling himself on the edge of the cot. Bucky’s pushed himself back so he can lean against the wall to sit sideways across the bed. Steve’s closer to the headboard, and he tugs the thin pillow out from under the blankets and hands it over. “Don’t fall asleep on me. It’s for your back,” he explains, “For all the good it will do.” 

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Bucky responds, taking the pillow and positioning it behind him. He’s not about to refuse any small amount of additional comfort, not when his arm is throbbing even around the numbness and the Tylenol he’s just taken has yet to kick in to solve that. Gun Guy could have at least had the courtesy to aim for his other, non-flesh arm. Then he would have had Bucky’s whole medical/scientific team after him for damaging what is really a quite expensive piece of engineering, and Bucky would have had one less mysterious gun-wielding person to deal with. Alas, he aimed the wrong way for that.

The flimsy metal rod disguised as a headboard must be digging into Steve’s back as he leans against it but his shoulders relax minutely as he turns his gaze to Bucky. He wants to somehow soothe him further, maybe let him take a nap. (Maybe take a nap with him, squished together on the tiny bed.) He looks exhausted still, as guarded as usual but less wary. Bucky likes this version of Steve, more comfortable and just a little bit flirty. He liked the other version, but this one seems more open. He’s clearly more in his element, for all that that element is apparently somewhat awful and falling apart. 

Or maybe he looks less wary simply because he can be honest. Bucky says aloud, “You look mighty comfortable for someone about to explain his whole mysterious life.”

Steve continues to look unconcerned about it, responds with, “I didn't promise my _whole_ life. Besides, I’ve wanted to all along. I thought it’d be easier if you knew what you might be facing. Natasha wanted to keep quiet, though. She thought if we could win you over naturally, you’d be less likely to turn on us later if it came to that.” 

Bucky wants to feel insulted or hurt that Natasha only reached out to him out of some plan to win him over as potential insurance against later betrayal. He should care, except he doesn’t. It makes sense in a way, and he can’t fault her for trying to do whatever her job is, especially when part of that means keeping herself and Steve a bit safer. The first step might have been forced and calculated, but there’s only so much she can fake. Hopefully. He will deal with that later,maybe, once he decides how much he wants to trust her after all of this is done with.

For now it’s all right. He does still want an explanation, though. “You were saying someone got shot?” 

“Right. Someone tried to kill Fury--we thought they had, for awhile,” he pauses, frowns, and then, offhand, “That’s probably not something you should know. Fury’s supposed to be dead still, to the rest of the world.” As if that’s a totally normal thing, to be shot “dead.” As if Steve somehow trusts Bucky enough already to divulge that, to believe that Bucky won’t go and tell whoever it is that wanted him dead in the first place. He doesn’t even know what he has done to earn Steve’s trust so completely, if he’s even done anything at all. Maybe that’s just how Steve is. He certainly seems less the subterfuge type than his lifestyle would lead anyone to believe. 

He continues, “I ended up having to move places. Natasha and I went to Sam’s but we needed somewhere different, something entirely new. I left that to Natasha, and she chose your building. You’d have to ask her exactly why.” Bucky knows why, at least a bit, in the few details Natasha had explained before. He doesn’t bother interjecting, though. Steve’s reaction that first day clearly shows he isn’t lying when he said he wasn’t really part of the decision making process. It says something, at least, that he has some measure of trust in Natasha to allow her that much say. 

“We had a few weeks there where everyone was circling one another at SHIELD,” Steve’s saying as Bucky is still caught on Natasha’s apartment search. “We were trying to work it out, what was going on, who shot Fury--then they made a move before we did, a few days back, tried to take me down in an elevator.” He pauses again, then adds, dry, “They failed, obviously.” 

Bucky’s heart stalls a bit, to hear that Steve has apparently had more than the one near-death experience in the past week. Steve must read something in his expression, because he says, “It’s fine. I’d been expecting something to happen for awhile. It was only a matter of time.”

That doesn’t make it better, not at all, but Bucky can’t exactly protest something that has already happened, so he simply says, “You’re an idiot, Rogers.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve responds, and then gives Bucky’s knee an awkward pat that Bucky supposes is meant to be reassuring. It’s not, but he lets his hand linger and that is a bit, or it’s at least something. Maybe.

Steve falls silent then, thoughtful and a little distant until Bucky pokes him in the shin with his foot to pull him out of it. “And then? You’re not done.”

“Turns out Hydra’s been working within SHIELD all along.” Bucky curtails his reaction, because everyone knows about Hydra, about Captain America’s last stand that dealt the organization a heavy blow that meant they couldn’t survive World War II--except apparently they could. They did, if what Steve’s saying is correct, and Bucky has little reason to not believe him at this point. His own disbelief, any exclamation, would not help at this moment, he thinks, when Steve is still leaning against the headboard but holding himself stiffly again, the hand that had grasped Bucky’s knee now grasping the blankets. “They became more obvious about it after that. They tried to eliminate me and Natasha while we were digging up more information that day after I saw you at the store, and then again today.”

He’s skimming the details, Bucky knows, either for the sake of brevity or for secrecy. He doesn’t pry, though, because it’s enough--three attempts on Steve’s life in less than a week is enough for him to feel angry. Add a supposedly eliminated evil organization into the mix and that’s more than enough information to go on. 

“I’m sorry they showed up at the apartment building today, Bucky,” Steve says, meeting Bucky’s eyes in a gaze that is entirely too sincere and direct. It could be overwhelming being a recipient of that stare but instead he forces himself to meet it. He expects elaboration but nothing comes. Apparently Steve means it simply as an apology, no excuses or extra words necessary. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” he asks, suddenly and without really meaning to, because meeting Steve’s eyes has reminded him again how tired the other man looks. Having to be constantly alert for danger for weeks, to have his whole occupation crumble around him, to be tested and attacked so often--no wonder Steve’s looked a bit wary every time Bucky’s seen him, no wonder Bucky saw so little of him at all. It’s entirely unsurprising that he looks run down and on edge. 

His question surprises Steve, who seems to fumble a bit before answering, “I did a couple nights ago. I don’t need much.”

Bucky scoffs, more to lighten the mood than out of any amusement. He is in fact the opposite of amused by any of this information, but his own anger won’t help. Kicking his limited caregiving abilities into gear, that might a small amount. Maybe. He hopes. It’s the only plan he’s got, and it served him all right last time. Apparently his new purpose in life is simply to get Steve Rogers (Captain fucking America) to relax enough to take a nap. 

“Sleep will still benefit you, fancy soldier abilities or no,” he says. “What about eating? You done that recently?” 

He still looks shocked, a little confused, but he answers, honestly as far as Bucky can tell, “This morning.”

“And you’ve what, had one giant fight and a whole lot of stress since then? You need some food. Where’s that in this place? I’ll go get us some.”

Bucky leverages himself up despite his protesting arm, slides forward off the bed and onto his feet. He should probably eat as well anyway, having just lost a bunch of blood and skipped dinner due to the gun-wielding men in his apartment. Steve’s answer is a still confused look, though, and, “I don’t know.”

“I’ll figure it out. You wait here and relax,” he commands, although he doesn’t doubt Steve will simply sit there, waiting and probably still baffled. It’s cute, if Bucky can even use that word in relation to someone so intimidatingly large and good-looking, but also a bit sad that he seems so thrown by such a simple kindness. 

Bucky essentially wanders until he finds a tiny little kitchen with a loudly humming fridge. It looks like it used to be a break room of some sort, an assortment of ugly, worn down tables all shoved up against one wall and the chairs trapped between. There’s food, which is what matters, basics that require little to no preparation. There is somewhat incongruously a large bag of Gala apples, someone’s attempt at normal healthy eating among the calorie-dense bars and grain-based products. He finds enough to make three mediocre sandwiches with no condiments, and also takes a partly-eaten box of Chips Ahoy and a few of the apples for good measure. He feels a bit like he’s preparing a school lunch, but it works. He somehow manages not to drop a single thing on the way back, although he finds himself at odds with the door and is forced to kick at it rhythmically until Steve opens it for him.

“See, told you I’d manage,” he says upon entering, as if Steve had argued it. He now looks more amused than baffled, which is a nice expression for him. He helps Bucky set it all down on the table, and then drags it along the floor the short distance to the bed so they can remain sitting there while eating. 

Bucky tries to make it look like he’s eating more than he actually is to force Steve into eating more than half, but he thinks fails and Steve manages to convey “I see what you’re doing and I’m going to allow it because I am too tired to argue, but know that I won’t let you do it in the future” in a single look. He ignores it to grab another cookie, trying his best to leave his right arm still because it turns out that any elbow movement makes everything that isn’t the numbed area hurt that much worse. 

It’s nice, quiet, as domestic as eating in a bunker-like, dimly-lit, horribly depressing room after a gunfight can be. Neither of them force any conversation and simply let one another recharge. Steve doesn’t remark on Bucky’s winces, although he undoubtedly takes them in, and Bucky in turn ignores the urge to coddle Steve like a child. (“Have another apple.” or “Do you need more water?” or “Should I go find another blanket?”)

Once most of the food is gone, Bucky asks, “How long do we have?” because he doesn’t wear a watch and digging his phone out of his right pocket seems like too much effort at the moment.

“Still a couple of hours,” Steve responds, polishing an apple off neatly and with such thoroughness that it’s impressive.

“Oh, good,” he says, and then lets himself fall (carefully) back onto the bed so he’s sideways across it again, lying down this time. He nudges the table away to give himself more room and it screeches loudly on the floor. “God, sorry, that was horrible.” 

Steve just smiles and throws the tiny amount of core he has left toward the garbage. It goes straight in, because of course it does. He then picks up the table and moves it back before sitting to Bucky’s right on the edge of the bed again. Whether it’s a want for closeness or simply a dislike of the awful metal chair, he isn’t sure. 

He takes a risk that it’s the first and reaches across his body to pull on Steve’s elbow. “Nap time,” he says, purposely injecting a tone to make it seem like he’s telling a petulant toddler he needs his afternoon nap. “You sleep, and I’ll even stay awake and keep watch for you,” he adds more seriously. 

Steve just looks at him for a moment, and that baffled expression is back except this time softer, a measure of uncertainty under it all. Bucky knows he should get up, maybe leave, at least give Steve full use of the bed, but that seems like too much effort and, if he admits it to himself, he just really does not want to. He wants to remain here in this little, ugly room, where it’s relatively safe and no one’s bothering them or trying to kill Steve in astonishing ways.

It occurs to him then, in a way it hadn’t entirely earlier, that a very significant portion of Steve’s world just fell apart around him, whatever he’s managed to drudge together in the relatively small amount of time he’s had since getting dug out of that ice. Bucky can’t even imagine it, waking up decades into the future, everything you know gone, only to find part of the reason for it all, taking down Hydra, didn’t actually succeed. 

So instead of moving away, Bucky just tugs on his elbow again when Steve doesn’t respond. “Come on. At least relax for a little while.” 

He does then, halting and hesitant like he’s not sure if Bucky’s going to revoke his permission for Steve to lay down beside him. He’s still tense, so Bucky just remains silent, stares at the ceiling and tries not to think too much about how much he wants to curl onto his side and into Steve’s space. For one thing, that’d be his right side, which right now would be incredibly painful, and for another, _still not the time, Barnes, and listen to what you told yourself before_.

The silence stretches on, but it’s not uncomfortable and eventually Bucky senses some of the tension leave the room. 

“Does this feel being an awkward teenager again to you?” Bucky asks, finally, because he once again feels oddly like he’s back in school trying to court some girl in her bedroom with the door open, and because he is looking at the ceiling and the room is eerily silent and he can pretend that this is a different situation where he can be a little bit honest and maybe trust someone for a moment or two to not react badly.

Steve doesn’t answer right away, and then says with a somewhat forced lightness, “I think my experience was probably different than yours.” 

And right. Of course. He had nearly forgotten for a moment the whole Steve Rogers History part. He’s about to ask, but Steve seems uncomfortable again so instead what comes out of his mouth is, maybe stupidly, “I feel like we should be holding hands with sweaty palms while my mom calls up the stairs to ask whether we need more juice boxes.”

He glances over at Steve out of the corners of his eyes because that was a stupid thing to say and against what he had earlier been telling himself, but it had sort of slipped out and he wants to regret it more than he does. Steve’s looking at the ceiling but he seems amused at least, not put off or whatever other negative emotions he could have. He moves his hand from where it had been resting on his stomach to gently place it on Bucky’s hand. It’s his right, the one attached to the inconveniently injured arm, so Steve doesn’t so much hold as simply let his hand settle there carefully despite his hand being perfectly fine and pain-free. 

“I would prefer the box of juice,” he says, and Steve laughs, and Bucky can’t help himself. He could be reading this whole thing terribly wrong (a small voice in the back of his head still goes, _Captain fucking America_ ) but he can't help it anyway. He slides over enough to push their shoulders together, although he’s careful to angle his body enough that he doesn’t squish his arm too much. “You know,” he says, thoughtfully, “We barely know one another.” 

Steve tenses a bit and then Bucky feels him force himself to relax again. “No, not really.”

“Is Captain America allowed to be behind closed doors with strange men?” Bucky asks. It’s a risk, really, bringing up the whole Captain America thing, acknowledging it to the room at large for the first time, but it needs to be done. He needs to somehow show that he doesn’t care. He cares about the secrecy but he doesn’t care about the content of those secrets, or at least not that one inasmuch as it doesn’t make a significant difference. 

“Captain America’s allowed to do what he wants right now,” Steve just says, thankfully not seeming to get defensive about his somewhat grandiose alter ego, or to react in any way that isn’t more or less brushing it off as a joke. He sounds a bit annoyed but it’s not directed at Bucky, he doesn’t think. 

And there’s also a lewd joke in there, isn’t there, that Bucky could make, but instead he says, “And does Captain America want to be here or does he have other things to do?” and it comes off less joking than he means it to, more uncertainty falling into the words than he wants to reveal.

Steve meets his eyes as best as he can from their positions, sideways and a little strange looking. “I have on good authority that he does.” 

That’s enough for Bucky to roll onto his side until he’s nearly hovering over Steve, who looks up at him a bit startled and unsure but so weirdly, thoroughly comforting and alive. He ignores the pressure on his arm because the anesthetic is still lingering and it allows him to do said ignoring. He doesn’t have to for long, though, because there’s a furrow between Steve’s brows that releases itself when Steve rolls, flips them so he’s now the one hovering over Bucky and Bucky finds himself flat on his back again, a bit surprised at the movement and more turned on by it than he wants to acknowledge.

“Stop trying to hurt your arm further,” Steve says. The uncertainty is still there, lingering at the corners of his mouth and in his eyes, but so is a certain mark of determination. It's brave, perhaps, that determination. Wary and brave and too trusting by half for someone who Big Bad Evil Guys are out to get.

“It would’ve been worth it,” Bucky responds. “Can I just---” and he cuts himself off, reaches up to pull Steve’s face to his, and he means it to be quick, light, but that doesn’t last when Steve pulls away for all of one second before moving back down and the kiss turns deeper rather quickly. 

Steve uses the distraction to grab Bucky’s hand from the side of his face, gently push it down flat on the bed again, and Bucky says, the space between them minuscule enough that he’s speaking into barely any air, “My hand is fine. Stop it.”

“Your hand is attached to your arm, which is not fine,” Steve says, and then kisses him again.

“You’re insufferable,” is his eventual response, punctuated by a light brush of his lips that lands to the left of Steve’s nose. And then, after their mouths meeting again for a moment or two (or ten), “Sleep. I was going to make you sleep.”

Steve hums a vague agreement into Bucky’s jaw and it sends a shiver down him that he tries hard to shove aside, and he lets him wander for a bit longer, and then says, begrudging, hating his own logic a little bit, “Seriously, you should get a least a short rest in while you have the chance.” 

His gets an annoyed noise as an answer, but Steve does pull away. He rolls onto his back again, and Bucky knows (again) he should move, should get up and allow Steve to use the bed properly instead of sideways with his legs over the edge, but also that does not sound like a remotely appealing idea.

So he says it instead of doing it: “I should leave. Let you have the bed.”

“It’s fine.” Steve’s answer is light, and he punctuates it by shifting, tucking his fingers under Bucky’s. He’s still to the right, which Bucky thinks is poor planning--he should have rolled the other way, even if, he admits, that would have quite possibly landed Steve off the end of the bed. The right means more carefulness, avoiding anything that puts pressure down on Bucky’s forearm or elbow. The left just means a small amount of self-consciousness, which is preferable at the moment and not something Bucky ever thought would be the case.

That’s not how it is, though, so Steve’s to his right and he’s being overly careful so their fingers are just barely touching. Bucky could do more, entangle their legs or move position, but he doesn’t because he doesn’t want to encourage anything not-sleep and right now this is fine and on theme, innocent and careful and quiet. 

So he doesn’t say anything else or move, just lets the silence fall until Steve’s breath evens out beside him, not quite asleep but not quite awake either. Bucky keeps watch, like he did before, for the hour or so they have until they are forced out of this little room and into facing Fury and his plans, Hydra and their machinations, the world and whatever else is out there. It will be fine, he thinks, or so he tells himself because there aren’t any other options. It will all have to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline should be clearer after this chapter (thanks, exposition) but please don't hesitate to ask. There are minor details that didn't make sense to mention but that I possibly changed slightly, if you're the type to try to match everything up to the movie.


End file.
